Author: Fernando Zavala-Partner
Italy’s fashion sector is slowing across every segment except one. Accessible luxury is showing more resilience than the rest of the market, while retail models across the wider sector are being restructured, according to PwC Italy’s 2026 M&A trends analysis for consumer markets. This follows a year in which Italian fashion sales fell 25%, according to national fashion chamber CNMI, and the number of companies operating in Italy’s supply chain has fallen by around 20,000 since 2011. At the same time, succession plans at many Italian luxury brands remain unclear, according to The Business of Fashion, a structural condition quietly determining which companies get sold, merged, or restructured over the next several years.
Executive Search: The candidate who was never the CEO
The most interesting talent pool in this market doesn’t show up on a standard executive search filter. Call them family-adjacent executives: people who spent years as COO, CFO, or General Manager working directly alongside a founder, without ever holding the top title, without being family themselves. When succession becomes urgent at a founder-led house, these executives are frequently better positioned to run the transition than an external hire with a stronger CV, because they already understand both the operating business and the family dynamics involved, without being the person whose departure or continuation is itself the point of tension. Boards are starting to actively hunt for this profile rather than defaulting to a conventional CEO search.
A role built to manage disappearing suppliers
With roughly 20,000 fewer companies in Italy’s fashion supply chain since 2011, a new kind of operational role is emerging: Head of Supply Chain Consolidation, responsible for managing the integration of smaller artisanal workshops into shared-cost “craftsmanship poles,” structures that let small producers split the cost of digital transformation and ESG compliance they couldn’t afford alone. This role sits somewhere between operations and cultural preservation, and it’s genuinely hard to source, because it requires someone who respects artisan tradition enough to not steamroll it, while still being ruthless about consolidation economics.
“We get called into a lot of these situations later than we should be, usually once the succession question has already become urgent rather than while there was still time to plan for it properly. The families that call us early end up with far more control over who leads the transition and how it’s structured,” says Fernando de Zavala, Partner at Zavala Civitas.
| Roles and how they’re changing | ||
| Role | What it used to require | What it requires now |
| Family-Adjacent Executive (succession candidate) | Not formally sourced as a distinct category | Deep operating knowledge plus family governance fluency, sourced proactively ahead of succession crises |
| Head of Supply Chain Consolidation | Operational role within Sourcing | Managing “craftsmanship pole” integration across shrinking artisan networks |
| Distressed Brand Turnaround Lead | Rare, crisis-only hire | Increasingly standing role as 2026 becomes a pivotal year for carve-outs and delistings, per PwC |
| Accessible Luxury Brand Director | Treated as a junior tier below true luxury | Elevated priority, as this is the one segment showing resilience while the rest of fashion slows |
Where this is heading for the industry
PwC Italy expects 2026 to be a pivotal year for spin-offs, carve-outs, and delisting of financially strained fashion brands, as private equity and distressed M&A specialists move on undervalued companies. Combine that with unclear succession at multiple family houses, and Italy is heading into a period where ownership changes and leadership changes happen simultaneously more often than sequentially. Zavala Civitas expects the next 12 to 24 months to produce a genuine talent squeeze on executives with both turnaround credibility and family governance experience, precisely the combination most searches aren’t yet built to find, because these two skill sets have historically been sourced from entirely separate candidate pools.
Why family-adjacent executives are an underused candidate pool
Most searches for Italian luxury and fashion leadership roles default to candidates with prior CEO or managing director titles at comparable brands. In transitions involving family succession, this overlooks a stronger pool: senior executives who worked closely alongside a founder without holding the top title, who understand both the operating reality and the family dynamics, without being the family member whose situation is the point of contention. In Zavala Civitas’s experience, these candidates are frequently better positioned to manage a succession transition than an external hire with a stronger CV but no exposure to the specific governance situation.
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Methodology & Citations
Zavala Civitas combines market mapping across external and family-adjacent executives with structured assessment of succession, transition and supply-chain consolidation experience. The analysis is supported by market research from PwC Italy, CNMI and The Business of Fashion.
Frequently Asked Questions: Executive Search in Italy for Luxury, Retail and Consumer
What is a “family-adjacent executive” and why does this profile matter now?
It refers to senior executives, typically COOs or CFOs, who worked closely with a founder without holding the top title. As succession becomes urgent at more Italian luxury houses, these candidates often understand both the business and family dynamics better than an external hire.
Why is Italian fashion described as slowing “across all segments” except one?
Accessible luxury is showing more resilience than both mass-market and ultra-luxury segments, according to PwC Italy’s 2026 analysis, while the broader sector restructures its retail models under pressure.
What does a Head of Supply Chain Consolidation actually manage?
This role oversees the integration of smaller artisanal workshops into shared-cost “craftsmanship pole” structures, helping producers split the cost of digital transformation and ESG compliance amid a shrinking supplier base.
How significant is the expected wave of carve-outs and delistings in Italian fashion in 2026?
PwC Italy’s consumer markets leader describes 2026 as a pivotal year for this activity, driven by private equity liquidity, lower financing costs, and undervalued consumer companies with strong underlying brands.
Will demand for turnaround and succession-fluent executives keep growing?
Zavala Civitas expects a genuine talent squeeze over the next 12 to 24 months, as executives combining turnaround credibility with family governance experience remain scarce relative to demand.
What does the executive search process involve at Zavala Civitas?
Mandate definition, market mapping across external and family-adjacent candidates, structured assessment of transition and succession management experience, and a validation stage before presentation, supported by a 92% closing rate across completed searches.
