Roberto Vedovotto

Roberto Vedovotto (born 30 September 1965) is an Italian businessman, twice the CEO of the Safilo Group from 2002 to 2006, and from 2009 to 2013. He has been the President and CEO of Kering Eyewear since 2014, and a member of Kering's executive committee since 2015.
Biography
Roberto Vedovotto was born and grew up in Bassano del Grappa, in Northern Italy. His father managed a small company. He holds a bachelor degree in economy from the Bocconi University (1989) and a master's degree in business administration from the London Business School (1994).
After his bachelor's degree, Vedovotto worked for over ten years as a managing director at Morgan Stanley Asset Management. In 1999, he led Morgan Stanley's first foray into the Italian pension fund market.
In March 2002, Vedovotto was appointed CEO of the eyewear manufacturing company Safilo. He restructured the company, fixed its Euro 1.2 billion debt, and listed it back on the Milan stock exchange (delisted by Safilo's chairman Vittorio Tabacchi in 2001) in 2005. In November 2006, he left Safilo to become the managing director and chairman of European luxury goods at Lehman Brothers. However, as Safilo was having troubles weathering the 2008 financial crisis, Vittorio Tabacchi asked Vedovotto to take back the direction of the eyewear company in November 2008.
In November 2013, Vedovotto joined Kering to pilot the development of the luxury group's eyewear division. He launched Kering Eyewear in 2014 with the aim to jettison the license-based model by producing eyewear internally and relying on a network of manufacturing partner. In March 2015, Roberto Vedovotto became a member of Kering's executive committee. Vedovotto led Kering Eyewear's acquisition of Lindberg in 2021 and Maui Jim in 2022.
Vedovotto is on the advisory boards of Bocconi University and the London Business School.

Main Menu

See Also

Main Menu