Farfetch Shakes Up New Guards Group, Off-White Leadership

New Guards Group co-founders Davide De Giglio and Andrea Grilli are exiting the company, owner Farfetch announced Thursday.

Farfetch group president Stephanie Phair will add chair of NGG to her role, while NGG’s chief marketing officer Cristiano Fagnani will become Off-White’s CEO in addition to leading the e-commerce platform’s new partnership with Reebok. The leadership of other NGG brands, such as Palm Angels, remains unchanged, the company said.

New Guards Group, which was founded in Milan in 2015, has “performed extremely well” since it was acquired by Farfetch in 2019, founder and CEO José Neves said in a statement.

“I would like to thank Davide and Andrea for their dedicated leadership over the past four years, and for building a very strong team of successors to continue driving the strategy and operations of NGG,” Neves said.

The executive shuffle comes after Farfetch inked a deal with Authentic Brands Group last month to become the operating partner for Reebok in Europe. Neves has described the move as a “multi-hundred-million-dollar” opportunity for his company.

Still, Farfetch’s market capitalisation continues to hover at less than 20 percent of its $8 billion valuation at the time of its 2018 IPO.

Acquiring New Guards Group, a hub that develops and distributes streetwear brands, disrupted the investor narrative that had positioned Farfetch as a fashion tech and e-commerce innovator set to dominate the luxury sector online. The sale of the trademark for flagship brand Off-White to LVMH (NGG still owns the operating company) and death of the label’s founder Virgil Abloh have heaped on additional uncertainty ahead of the shakeup.

“With a very experienced management team … and the added benefit of Stephanie’s oversight, I am confident in the continued success of NGG,” Neves said.