Kering strengthens jewelry division with key leadership appointments

Kering has not waited long to put a face to its new jewellery organisation.

A few months after creating Kering Jewelry, the group has appointed Charlotte Fournet as managing director of Pomellato and Krizia Cucurachi as managing director of DoDo. The two executives will take up their positions on September 15 and will report directly to Jean-Marc Duplaix, Kering's chief operating officer and now CEO of Kering Jewelry.

These appointments extend the reorganisation initiated in the spring. In March, Kering grouped Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo and Qeelin into a single entity led by Jean-Marc Duplaix. The group also integrated its industrial capabilities, notably Raselli Franco Group, which is set to play a central role. The managing directors of the four Maisons must now report to this structure. Six months later, Kering is therefore beginning to install the profiles responsible for bringing this new organisation to life.

The financial context gives this reorganisation a particular resonance. In the first half of 2026, Kering Jewelry achieved a turnover of 521 million euros, up 14 percent on a reported basis and 20 percent on a comparable basis. Sales from its own network jumped by 28 percent. The current operating margin reached 6.2 percent, compared to 3.5 percent a year earlier.

While the group is still trying to turn around several of its major fashion Maisons, jewellery is showing a much more favourable dynamic. Kering is now giving it the organisational means to pursue this growth.

Pomellato, capturing the high-end without sacrificing milanese audacity

Charlotte Fournet arrives at Pomellato with a background that largely explains her appointment. After joining Saint Laurent in 2014, she moved to Gucci in 2019 and then Bottega Veneta in 2020. Until now, she held the position of collections merchandising director at Bottega Veneta, where she led the merchandising strategy across all categories. Her experience covers leather goods; footwear; ready-to-wear; jewellery; accessories and lifestyle.

Her profile clearly places the product and its commercial performance at the centre of her mission. Kering is asking her to strengthen the Maison's image, improve the performance of the boutique network and pursue a controlled expansion of distribution.

Pomellato already has good momentum. In the first half of the year, the Maison continued to grow, driven in particular by Japan, North America and the success of its key collections. In the second quarter, Kering Jewelry still posted 18 percent growth on a comparable basis.

Fournet is therefore not arriving to rebuild Pomellato. She is taking the helm of a Maison that is already performing well and whose development Kering wishes to accelerate. The difficulty will be to find the right pace. Pomellato has built a very recognisable identity in contemporary jewellery, with its Milanese aesthetic, its colours and its special relationship with design. The group wants more growth. It cannot, however, take the risk of trivialising what makes the Maison valuable.

This is also where Fournet's experience in several luxury categories can be useful. She understands the trade-offs between creation, assortment, merchandising and commercial performance. In other words, everything that transforms a desirable collection into a profitable business.

DoDo, industrialising gifting without dissolving the emotional connection

The choice of Krizia Cucurachi tells a different story. She already knows DoDo. Having joined the Maison in 2024 as international product and brand director, she oversaw product; image; communication; events; the visual identity of the boutiques and media relations. Before that, she had spent more than ten years at Swarovski, where she held several management positions and participated in the brand's transformation and growth.

Kering is entrusting her with a different mission from that of Charlotte Fournet. It involves developing DoDo, consolidating its position in gifting jewelry, strengthening the bond with its customers and reinforcing its leadership in Italy, while pursuing its development in certain international markets.

DoDo holds a unique place in Kering's jewellery portfolio. The Maison is neither Boucheron, with its high jewellery positioning and Parisian heritage, nor Pomellato, whose territory is based on contemporary Milanese design. It focuses more on gift jewellery, the emotional attachment to the product and a more everyday relationship with its clientele.

International growth will therefore have to preserve this proximity. The choice of a director already established within the Maison allows Kering to rely on a deep knowledge of the product and its customers rather than on a managerial disruption.

Four Maisons, four markets, one organisation

Kering Jewelry brings together four Maisons whose trajectories are neither identical nor interchangeable. Boucheron, Pomellato, DoDo and Qeelin do not have the same history, the same positioning, or the same priority geographies.

Boucheron is currently driving the growth of Kering's jewellery portfolio. The Maison once again reached record levels in the second quarter, supported in particular by Japan and the Asia-Pacific region and by the launch of Quatre XS.

Qeelin plays another role. The Maison is continuing its growth, with particularly strong exposure to the Asia-Pacific region. In the first quarter, Kering had already reported a solid performance driven by this region.

DoDo, for its part, had a more difficult second quarter after a high basis for comparison. Pomellato continues to benefit from good momentum in Japan and North America.

This diversity is precisely what makes the new organisation interesting. Kering can pool certain skills and infrastructures without asking the four Maisons to follow the same commercial formula. Each retains its positioning, its priority markets and its way of working, while certain functions are brought closer together at group level.

Hard luxury, a new crisis buffer

The creation of Kering Jewelry comes at a time when jewellery is showing a dynamic that is significantly superior to that of several of the group's other activities. In the first quarter of 2026, Kering Jewelry's turnover reached a record level of 269 million euros, up 22 percent on a comparable basis. Sales in the directly operated network had increased by 28 percent. Boucheron then posted the strongest growth in the entire group.

In the second quarter, the momentum continued with a turnover of 252 million euros and an 18 percent increase on a comparable basis. Over six months, Kering Jewelry therefore shows 20 percent growth, while the group's total turnover increased by only 1 percent on a comparable basis.

The gap is starting to matter in a group that is still trying to relaunch several of its main activities. Kering is indeed emerging from a period of major transformation. Gucci remains down 5 percent on a comparable basis in the first half, despite a sequential improvement, while the Fashion & Leather Goods segment is still down by 1 percent.

In this context, jewellery offers the group a growing business with strong positions in Asia, Japan and North America. Growth does not solve everything, however. Kering Jewelry's operating margin is still only 6.2 percent in the first half. It has certainly gained 2.7 points in one year, but it remains much lower than that of Kering Eyewear, which stands at 23 percent.

Behind the brands, Kering takes back control of the industry

This is a less visible part of the new organisation, but it is important to the group's strategy. In creating Kering Jewelry, Kering has not only brought four brands together. It has also placed its industrial capabilities there, with Raselli Franco Group currently being integrated. The group presents this operation as a way to strengthen its know-how, its technologies and its vertical integration in jewellery.

The more the Maisons grow, the more important the ability to produce more while preserving know-how becomes. Kering can thus act on two fronts. The Maisons develop their image, their collections and their distribution; at the same time, the group strengthens the industrial capabilities that should enable them to support this growth.

The benefit of this organisation is particularly evident in the trajectories of the four brands. Boucheron can continue to accelerate, Pomellato can expand its distribution, DoDo can develop its international presence and Qeelin can continue its expansion in Asia. Behind these different strategies, Kering now has a larger common industrial base.

A new generation of leaders, but above all a new method

The choice of the two new female directors also gives an indication of how Kering now intends to manage its Maisons.

Charlotte Fournet has built her career within several of the group's brands. Krizia Cucurachi already knows DoDo and has extensive experience in brand transformation at Swarovski. Kering itself emphasises its desire to “foster a new generation of leaders from within”.

After several years of reorganisation, the group seems to be looking for profiles capable of staying close to the product while taking on larger organisations. The idea is no longer just to place a new management team at the head of a Maison, but to operate a whole where certain resources, certain expertise and certain industrial capabilities are shared.

Jewellery thus becomes one of the first areas where this new organisation can show what it is worth. Kering is preserving the identities of its Maisons, bringing certain functions closer together and strengthening its industrial base. At the same time, it is entrusting the brands to leaders who already know the group or their environment.

Scaling up without extinguishing brand identities

This is where the main difficulty for Kering Jewelry lies. The group wants to take advantage of the current momentum in jewellery to give greater scope to four brands whose value is based precisely on their differences.

Boucheron does not need to become Pomellato. Pomellato would gain nothing by adopting DoDo's codes. Qeelin must continue to speak to an Asian clientele with its own cultural references. The common platform therefore only makes sense if it remains sufficiently discreet behind the brands.

The appointments of Charlotte Fournet and Krizia Cucurachi are a first response to this organisation. Two different profiles, two different missions, but the same hierarchical line.

Jewellery has proven it can sell: Jean-Marc Duplaix must now prove it can be profitable. At a 6.2 percent operating margin, the division remains far from industry standards. Kering no longer has time to procrastinate. Faced with a slump in its fashion business, the group is playing its jewellery card and imposing integrated management. If Fournet and Cucurachi succeed in accelerating the pace without compromising the product, Kering will have finally found its second pillar.