Patrizio Bertelli (born 6 April 1946), is chief executive officer (CEO) of Prada Group and husband to Miuccia Prada.
Life and career
Born in the Tuscan city of Arezzo, in 1946, Patrizio Bertelli is part of an Italian family with a long legal tradition. Nonetheless, his professional life soon began in the leather goods industry, leading the way to his entrepreneurial future in the luxury industry: when he was 21 and at university he founded a small leather goods company, Sir Robert, which has been the base of his future entrepreneurial career.
In the late 1970s he met Miuccia Prada, granddaughter of Mario Prada, founder of the Prada brand, not only they started a professional relationship, but also a personal one which later led to their marriage.
In the 1980s, they rethought Prada’s image and added a modern dimension to the brand’s core identity. Bertelli introduced a new business model within the luxury goods industry when he brought all internal processes together in order to have full control of the production line and of quality standards. This involved a product differentiation strategy, the development of new collections and labels as well as the renovation of all boutiques. With this rationale, the company expanded rapidly through the 1980s and 1990s.
Working in collaboration with Rem Koolhaas and Herzog & de Meuron, in the late 1990s, Bertelli and Miuccia Prada decided to re-visit the concept of shopping, and they launched the “Prada Epicentres” project. In these stores, luxury goods, technology, design and architecture merge to create a range of services and sensory and audiovisual experiences . The “Prada Epicentres” are located in New York (Rem Koolhaas, 2001), Tokyo (Herzog & de Meuron, 2003) and Los Angeles (Rem Koolhaas, 2004).
In 2000, Bertelli received an honorary degree in Business Economics from the University of Florence.
Later, in 2013, Forbes ranked him and his wife as one of the most influential couples in the world.
As of 2015, Bertelli is, together with Miuccia Prada, co-chief executive officer of the Prada Group, which includes: Prada, Miu Miu, Church’s, Car Shoe and Marchesi 1824.
Patrizio Bertelli serves as the Chief Executive Officer of Prada S.p.A. and has a net worth of $5.2 billion. Patrizio Bertelli earned his net worth in business setting-up a small factory in Arezzo to produce belts and bags and signed a contract to produce a leather accessories collection for the Prada label. He is the mastermind behind a label. Most people associate with his wife, Miuccia Prada, the avant-garde designer who over the years has created global sensations out of industrial nylon black backpacks, wallpaper-motif pleated skirts, tiedyed dresses and thick high-heeled wedge shoes, to name just a few. When the couple first met at a trade fair in Milan, Bertelli has encouraged his wife to take risks that have transformed the company into a global fashion conglomerate with $2.4 billion in sales, four labels. The partnership him and his wife is the heart of a firm that has thrived for the past quarter century as a distinctly family-run enterprise.
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