LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton veteran Michael Burke is coming to America, WWD has learned.
He has been named chairman and chief executive officer of LVMH Americas, a new post charged with “representing and promoting the best interests of the group in North and South America, in a complex and evolving geopolitical period,” according to an internal announcement shared exclusively with WWD.
In addition, Burke has been appointed nonexecutive chairman of Tiffany & Co.’s board of director, with LVMH characterizing the appointment as “a strategic role to support the growth ambition of the iconic American maison.”
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The development, effective Monday, highlights “LVMH’s ambition to further invest in the region in the coming years” — and its confidence in Burke, best known for a stellar decade leading Louis Vuitton to new heights.
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According to market sources, Vuitton’s revenues tripled during Burke’s tenure, with profitability leaping fourfold.
“Throughout our close and fruitful collaboration, Michael has perfectly incarnated the values of our group,” Bernard Arnault, chairman and CEO of LVMH, stated in the announcement. “His outstanding leadership helped to continuously elevate the desirability and craft of the whole industry to new heights.
“I am convinced his long-term vision, and unique entrepreneurial spirit will be invaluable assets to the group at this strategic time in the Americas,” Arnault added.
The U.S. accounted for a quarter of LVMH’s 84.7 billion euros of revenue in 2024 and is still perceived as having untapped potential for luxury goods players.
As of the end of last year, LVMH operated 1,193 stores in the U.S. and counted nearly 45,000 employees, according to the group’s annual report.
Under the new configuration, both Anish Melwani, chairman and CEO of LVMH Inc., and Davide Marcovitch, president LVMH Latin America, will report to Burke, who will be based in New York.
It makes official that Burke is not implicated in LVMH Fashion Group, which he was meant to take over in January 2024 from his longtime colleague Sidney Toledano, who has continued to pilot the operation. (The fashion group comprises houses including Celine, Givenchy, Kenzo, Loewe, Marc Jacobs, Patou and Emilio Pucci.)
It also marks a return Stateside for the French American executive, who was born in the French Alps and had a peripatetic childhood since his father was in the Air Force.
After graduating in 1980 with a master of business administration from EDHEC in Lille, France, Burke 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.
One of Arnault’s most trusted deputies, Burke is prized for his mastery of global retail markets and real estate, merchandising prowess, complicity with creatives and sharp instincts about where luxury is heading.
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, and for thriving on complexity.
After winding up his tenure at Dior in 1992, Burke served as president and CEO of Louis Vuitton North America from 1993 until 1997, where he oversaw the construction of the LVMH tower in New York on 57th Street. Burke returned to Paris as Christian Dior Couture’s executive vice president and was ultimately named worldwide managing director, the number-two position at the fashion house, in March 1998.
In 2003, he was promoted to chairman and CEO of Fendi, leading the Roman house for eight years before being conscripted in 2011 to take up the management helm at Bulgari SpA, which LVMH had acquired earlier that year. He brought two signatures of his brand leadership to Bulgari: surprise and speed.
At the end of 2013, he was moved over to Louis Vuitton, where he initiated an upscaling drive that changed the brand’s fortunes — and scope.
In an interview with WWD last year, Burke said the “three enemies” of business success are arrogance, bureaucracy and complacency.
By contrast, he argued that LVMH companies “are always managed with a very positive energy that tomorrow will be better. That’s our fundamental value. We like to have fun, and we’re very passionate about what we do. We don’t aim for the average — we aim high, we aim far into the future.”