WWD Gave an Award to Louis Vuitton’s Michael Burke for Creative Leadership – WWD

Given his strong track record of invigorating brands and building successful global businesses, Michael Burke is sometimes referred to his peers within LVMH as an encyclopedia of luxury.

He’s also something of an encyclopedia of everything, erudite on a mind-bending array of topics ranging from architecture and history to geography.

A charismatic, cerebral and well-rounded executive with a fun-loving streak and a ready laugh, he’s known for his ability to motivate teams, meshing well with creative types, and for thriving on complexity.

As chairman and chief executive officer of Louis Vuitton, he faces complexities galore, piloting the largest luxury goods brand in the industry by revenue — and one that delivers the lion’s share of profits for its parent LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

He also interfaces with a range of renowned creative figures, including Nicolas Ghesquière, Vuitton’s artistic director of women’s collections since 2013, and Francesca Amfitheatrof, artistic director of watches and jewelry since 2018.

Over the past year, Burke bravely negotiated a major crisis — the death of Virgil Abloh, artistic director of men’s collections at Vuitton — overcoming personal grief and a loss of one of the company’s creative engines by honoring Abloh’s principles and sustaining the momentum he and his design team brought to the brand.

Despite widespread speculation about who might take up the men’s reins, Burke has remained mum and sanguine, insisting, “I would like there to be some space between Virgil and his successor.”

Over the years his instincts about where luxury is heading have proven prescient. He initiated and adroitly presses on with Vuitton’s upscaling drive, ensuring that products, stores, events and even manufacturing facilities respect lofty levels of excellence and sophistication.

For these reasons and more, WWD is presenting Burke with this year’s Edward Nardoza Honor for Creative Leadership. Burke is also scheduled to speak at the WWD Apparel and Retail CEO Summit on Wednesday.

Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, lauded Burke for accompanying him “since the beginning of this great adventure.”

“I believe that, like me, he tells himself that we are still small and that we must continue to look far ahead in order to continue to develop and further grow Louis Vuitton, of which he is one of the artisans of success,” the luxury titan told WWD. “Every time I go with Michael to a boutique or a workshop, I see the deep appreciation and admiration that his collaborators have for him. He has always had strong relationships with all of his teams, whether at Louis Vuitton or in his other functions within the group.”

Burke often echoes Arnault’s conviction that sales growth and profits are not an objective, but simply the result of creating desirable, high-quality products.

According to Arnault, “In addition to creative or financial achievements, the success of a fashion company is also measured by the chemistry that exists or is created between a designer and their manager.

“On this point, I must say that Michael is amazing,” Arnault said. “When he was boss of Fendi, Michael worked closely with Karl Lagerfeld, who was one of the greatest designers we have known.

“I think it helped him to really understand what artistic directors need to express their full potential because, ultimately, a CEO is not someone who simply has to agree with every decision of their designer,” Arnault continued. “On the contrary, a successful CEO in our industry is someone who can partner with their designer — from a business point of view — to align the brand’s strategy with the vision of its creator.”

Arnault also talked about Burke’s affinity for craftsmanship, and innovation, too.

“Michael often says that Louis Vuitton is not a fashion maison, but a maison of culture. In this sense, he is very attached to this notion of heritage, which is a key pillar of LVMH. You only have to see the new Vendôme workshop dedicated to precious leathers to understand how it brings tradition to life alongside modernity,” Arnault said. “Michael has also been the origin of some of our great partnerships in recent years, such as Supreme, which strongly reinforced the desirability of the maison across different consumer groups.”

LVMH veteran Sidney Toledano, who received the inaugural WWD Honor for Creative Leadership in 2016, described his peer Burke as “one of the best I’ve ever worked with.” Toledano is now chairman and CEO of the LVMH Fashion Group, but counted on Burke as his number two during his long, celebrated tenure piloting Christian Dior.

Toledano lauded Burke’s mastery of global retail markets, merchandising prowess and his complicity with fashion designers.

Managing a giant enterprise like Vuitton may be daunting, but Burke approaches the task like a seasoned coach and a fearless tightrope walker, thrusting ahead and continuing to innovate in multiple ways.

While many luxury brands stage repeat shows — exporting their original displays in Milan or Paris to far-flung locales — Burke came up with “spin-off” shows, which further elaborate on the original fashion statement and foreshadows the next one.

Amid many cookie-cutter retail formats, Burke has marched Vuitton in the opposite direction, ensuring boutiques are original, drenched in the history and norms of their surroundings and engineered to conjure unique “emotional” experiences.

A new boutique in Lille, France, ranks as a perfect example. It’s located within L’Huitrière, formerly a landmark Art Deco fish restaurant, and its listed facade and fully tiled interiors were painstakingly restored, reflecting a time when it also sold fresh shellfish and hosed down the walls and floor at the end of the day.

“It’s the epitome of made-to-order. Every square inch has been restored to its original state, down to the hinges,” Burke told WWD earlier this year. “It makes the store unique and at the end of the day, this is what people are looking for, unique experiences.”

Vuitton remained resilient during the pandemic because Burke invited every sales associate to behave like a store manager. “He or she could sell any product to anyone, anywhere without having to go through any kind of processes or permissions,” he explained. “So instead of having 400 store managers, I ended up with 14,000.”

With travel to China still well-nigh impossible due to the country’s zero-COVID-19 policy, Burke entrusted his teams there to mount spin-off shows in Shanghai and Aranya, which attracted massive audiences. The latter spectacle, livestreamed on eight digital platforms, attracted more than 278 million viewers.

“My biggest satisfaction comes from seeing a team coalescing and winning,” he said, flashing a smile.

Many staffers at Vuitton look up to Burke as a father figure and a highly inspirational leader skilled at galvanizing teams and supporting them to reach their goals. They describe him as a good listener, someone intensely interested in people and able to bring deep meaning and cultural resonance to every project, big or small.

Insiders also say that his five children have helped him keep in touch with the behaviors and values of new customers.

What’s more, the executive exudes calm and confidence despite what must be one of the most demanding jobs in fashion. Burke confessed that his chauffeur, who hears him working the phones in the car, often expresses concern that the pressure may be too much.

But in Burke’s view, it’s not stressful. “As long as it’s a stepping stone to victory, it’s fun,” he asserted.

Born in the French Alps, Burke had a peripatetic childhood since his father was in the air force. At six months old, his family moved to the United States: Maine, New Hampshire and Florida. He went to high school in Germany and then enrolled in business school EDHEC in Lille, France.

In an interview, Burke confessed that he rarely attended business classes, preferring to tag along with his future wife, Brigitte, who was studying psychiatry and psychology at a nearby university.

“I think I approach most business problems from that angle because that’s what I was really interested in. I thought that was more interesting than accounting,” he said. “You don’t find out what’s next in spreadsheets; you don’t find what’s next in P&L [profit and loss] statements.”

While he was cutting classes at EDHEC, and enriching his brain with psychological theories, he also worked as an intern for an associate of Bernard Arnault’s.

After graduating in 1980 with a master of business administration, he moved to the U.S. to work full-time for Arnault, initially on residential real estate at various family holdings before joining Christian Dior in the U.S. in 1986.

“Selling residential real estate is no different than selling luxury. It’s all about status, positioning, neighborhoods, how you want to be perceived,” he said. “I was always interested in the psychology of business, the psychology of selling.”

Long a key Arnault protégé, Burke next served as president and CEO of Louis Vuitton North America from 1993 until 1997, where he oversaw the construction of the LVMH building in New York on 57th Street. Burke returned to Paris as Dior’s executive vice president and was named managing director, the number-two position at the fashion house, in March 1998. He next became worldwide managing director of Christian Dior Couture.

He rose to further prominence in 2003 when he was named president and CEO of Fendi, where he nimbly orchestrated a creative reunification between Lagerfeld and Silvia Venturini Fendi, who had become estranged during the topsy-turvy years when the Roman house was jointly owned by LVMH and Prada Group.

At Fendi he earned a reputation for bold fashion spectacles, headlined by a runway show on The Great Wall of China in 2007 that Arnault characterized as “the first fashion show visible from the moon.” He also put craftsmanship back on the consumer agenda through in-store demonstrations and an ongoing link with industrial designers.

In short, he transformed a family-owned enterprise with complicated dynamics into a taut and professionally run luxury player with high profitability.

Having proven his ability to immerse himself deeply into the culture of a brand and build strong business pillars, Burke was then conscripted in 2011 to take up the management helm at Bulgari SpA, which LVMH acquired earlier that year in a cash-and-share swap estimated at more than $6 billion.

He brought two signatures of his brand leadership to Bulgari: surprise and speed, accelerating the development of its watch division and shaking up the way jewelry collections were presented.

At the end of 2013, he was moved over to Louis Vuitton. Always prescient of new trends in luxury, he immediately started talking about experiences, personalized services and “individualized sophistication.”

He initiated an upscaling drive, nudging the brand away from its reliance on monogram canvas products by launching more pricey leather bags like the Capucines, and also zhushing up its retail network, seeking out heritage locations that are attractions in their own right, or commissioning captivating architecture, like the tower of undulating, iridescent glass that dazzles pedestrians in Tokyo’s Ginza district.

Burke relishes being with his teams at crucial moments: doing rap poetry in lieu of a speech at a recent employee event in Paris; attending factory openings in Alvarado, Texas, and the Loir-et-Cher region in central France, or dining with his industrial teams the evening after annual meetings with union officials.

During the first lockdowns in France as coronavirus cases were spiraling, Burke headed south to visit factories that were initially shuttered and quickly reengineered to manufacture surgical masks. “When everybody was hiding in their homes, I got in the car and I drove down to the Azé. I only spent two hours with [workers], but they will never never forget that,” he said. “You have to be there for those moments. That’s what makes an organization, that’s what makes a team. You have to be there for them, they have to feel that.”

The executive has a contrarian view about empowering employees, probably stemming from his psychological approach to the business.

In his view, when you have a super-motivated workforce, “you don’t have to empower them: They will grab the power, they’ll take it from you,” he said. “All you have to do is point them in the right direction and know you’re going to get there.…That’s one of the most rewarding feelings of our corporate lives.”

In addition to his leadership of Vuitton, Burke is also chairman of the board of Tiffany & Co. since January 2021.

He is also a member of the LVMH executive committee.