Fragrance is one of the most profitable businesses in luxury — operating margins at established prestige fragrance brands can reach 30-40%. For groups like LVMH and Kering, fragrance isn’t an accessory category; it’s a margin engine. The talent needed to run these businesses effectively is scarce, which is why the movement of Romain Spitzer from LVMH to Kering’s Bottega Veneta matters beyond the usual executive reshuffle.
Spitzer’s Specific Expertise
Romain Spitzer headed the fragrance group at LVMH — a position that puts you at the intersection of brand, retail, and product strategy for some of the world’s most valuable fragrance licenses. LVMH’s fragrance portfolio includes Dior Parfums (J’adore, Sauvage), Givenchy, and licensed operations for Kenzo, Givenchy, and others. This is expertise at significant scale.
Bringing that expertise to Bottega Veneta signals what Kering intends for the brand’s fragrance ambitions. Bottega Veneta has historically focused on leather goods — its positioning is defined by the intrecciato weave and a philosophy of recognizable-only-to-those-who-know. Fragrance at that level of discreet luxury requires a different approach than mainstream prestige.
Bottega’s Fragrance Opportunity
Bottega Veneta’s fragrance portfolio is still modest compared to Chanel, Dior, or even Gucci (Kering’s largest brand by revenue). But the brand has the raw material: a clientele with high average spend, a distinctiveness positioning that creates space for genuinely unconventional fragrance offerings, and growing global recognition following its cultural moment under former creative director Daniel Lee.
A fragrance expert of Spitzer’s caliber arriving at Bottega Veneta suggests Kering sees fragrance as a meaningful growth vector for the brand — not just a licensing exercise, but a genuine strategic pillar.
The Broader Talent Competition
The LVMH-Kering talent exchange runs in both directions over time. Both groups recruit aggressively from each other and from third-party luxury houses, fashion, consulting, and consumer goods. The senior ranks of luxury leadership are small — there are perhaps a few hundred people globally with the combination of brand instinct, operational capability, and cross-cultural experience to run a major luxury fragrance business. Whoever employs them shapes the commercial outcomes.