Succession Planning at Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH)
Sometimes we learn unexpected things in school.
Organizational Behavior. First year in business school.
Just this: organizations are resilient and can outlive the founder.
Resilient. Able to adapt to changing conditions. In boom times, new hires and nice profits. In down times, downsize and sell assets. It doesn’t mean we can’t survive. It just means we might look different tomorrow. It clicked. It prompts the question: what is our real mission? To endure into the future? To enrich ourselves today? What is our incentive? Is this an old money sense of time and honor? Or new money flash? Who’s in charge anyway?
Ongoing. Sometimes lyrics fit, enter The Who: “meet the new boss, same as the old boss” from “Don’t Get Fooled Again.” You’ll have to listen for yourself, the change it had to come. We know it’s coming. How do we plan for it, even in the best of times, in the most successful of old money endeavors?
We were travelling, visiting castles. And the question rattled inside: how many generations did it take before the castle was abandoned? One example, King Ludwig II with a storybook castle and tragic end. Another, at Inveraray Castle, ongoing as a museum to another time, the Clan of Campbell heritage continues.
In the headlines today, Bernard Arnault and the Louis Vuitton Moet Hennessey (LVMH) $280 billion empire of luxury brands, facing geopolitical threats to their global strategy, in the midst of their own succession planning. There are 5 children, each involved in different ways. How to plan and execute well in these situations, to remain resilient for the long term?
Two quotes from today’s Reuters article, the first from a Swiss banker: “The true test as a manager is how you manage events through tough times,” and the second from Bernard Arnault “divestment is not on the agenda.”
With thanks to Reuters, article link here:
And for me, still to be watched, the HBO series: Succession