Bernard Arnault may now be the world’s richest man. Meet his 5 ultrawealthy children vying to take over his LVMH empire in a real-life ‘Succession’ plot
Alexandre spent about four years as the CEO of German luggage brand Rimowa after reportedly persuading his father to buy an 80% stake in it in 2016. During his time at the helm, he revitalized Rimowa – including launching collaborations with Supreme and Off-White.
Louis Vuitton boss Bernard Arnault is only the 3rd person to be worth $200 billion – and his 5 kids are all Nepo babies
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- LVMH boss Bernard Arnault, the world’s richest person, just saw his wealth surpass $200 billion.
- Arnault has five children – and they all work across LVMH and its brands, too.
- Delphine became CEO of Dior in January, while Frédéric was named CEO of Tag Heuer aged just 25.
Luxury goods mogul Bernard Arnault is the world’s richest person.
Bernard Arnault is currently the world’s richest person with a net worth of about $201 billion, according to estimates by Bloomberg. He’s only the third person to surpass the $200 billion mark following tech moguls Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, both of whom have since seen their wealth fall.
Arnault cofounded LVMH in the 1980s, and is its CEO and chair. The French luxury conglomerate owns a range of brands covering fashion, perfume, jewelry, watches, and alcohol including Marc Jacobs, Givenchy, Moët and Chandon, Fenty Beauty, and Tiffany and Co.
“Succession planning in strategic roles has been instrumental to the success of LVMH’s key brands over the past 20 years,” Citi analyst Thomas Chauvet said, per Reuters.
Arnault, 74, has not said who he wants to take over from him, but it’s a topic that gets discussed every time he gives one of his offspring a new role. Last year LVMH raised the age limit of its CEO from 75 to 80, extending Arnault’s possible tenure.
His oldest child – and only daughter – is the CEO of Dior.
Delphine, born in 1975, is the eldest of Bernard’s five children, and his only daughter.
She started her career at McKinsey, where she spent two years as a consultant before moving to designer John Galliano’s company.
Delphine worked at Christian Dior Couture as its deputy managing director from 2008 to 2013, before spending a decade as an executive vice president of Louis Vuitton, LVMH’s biggest brand.
She started as the CEO and chair of Dior on February 1.
Delphine sits on LVMH’s board of directors and is a member of its executive committee – only the second woman to join it, and its youngest member when she joined it at 43.
Antoine Arnault is the CEO of LVMH’s parent company.
Antoine is Bernard’s oldest son, born in 1977. Like Delphine, Antoine was born to Bernard’s first wife, Anne Dewavrin.
Antoine started working at LVMH in 2005 in its advertising department. Just two years later, he was appointed director of communications at Louis Vuitton, where he launched campaigns with public figures ranging from Angelina Jolie and Bono to Muhammad Ali and Mikhail Gorbachev.
In December, Antoine was appointed CEO of Christian Dior SE, the holding company the family uses to control LVMH. He’s also the CEO of shoemaker Berluti and non-executive chair of cashmere label Loro Piana.
Antoine became a board member at LVMH in 2006 and has been the company’s head of image and environment since 2018.
Alexandre became an executive VP at Tiffany and Co. after LVMH bought the jeweler.
Alexandre was born in 1992, Bernard’s first son to his second wife, Helene Mercier, and is an executive vice president at Tiffany and Co.
After interning in New York at McKinsey and KKR, Alexandre moved to his father’s retail empire, where he worked on digital innovation.
“I was obviously raised to be in the group,” Alexandre told The New York Times in 2018, adding that it was ultimately his choice to work at LVMH and that he turned down offers from McKinsey and KKR.
Alexandre spent about four years as the CEO of German luggage brand Rimowa after reportedly persuading his father to buy an 80% stake in it in 2016. During his time at the helm, he revitalized Rimowa – including launching collaborations with Supreme and Off-White.
After LVMH bought Tiffany and Co. for $15.8 billion in 2020, Alexandre became executive vice president of product and communications at the jewelry maker at just 28 years of age.
Former President Donald Trump said in February that he had hosted Alexandre and his wife for dinner at Mar-a-Lago. “He is a young man on the move, the son of one of the great businessmen and leaders in Europe, and in the World,” Trump wrote of Arnault.
Frédéric is the CEO of Tag Heuer.
Frédéric, born in 1995, is the CEO of TAG Heuer.
After interning at Facebook and McKinsey, and a brief period running a mobile payment startup, Frédéric quickly moved up the ranks at LVMH.
He joined the company full-time in 2017 as the temporary head of connected technologies at the Swiss watchmaker. Just a year later, he became TAG’s director of strategy and digital. In 2020, he was named the brand’s CEO at the age of 25.
The New York Times reported that the elder Arnault had groomed Frédéric to become TAG Heuer’s leader from the start, though this wasn’t entirely smooth sailing.
Stéphane Bianchi, who was CEO of TAG before Frédéric and tasked with training his successor, told the newspaper they clashed “everywhere” at the start.
In his time running the company, Frédéric has focused on connected watches, orchestrated a shift from wholesale to retail and grown its ecommerce sales, and negotiated a partnership with Porsche.
Bernard’s youngest son Jean runs Louis Vuitton’s watches division.
Jean Arnault is Bernard’s youngest son and joined LVMH after graduating. He has a master’s in financial mathematics from MIT and another in mechanical engineering from Imperial College, London, according to the Financial Times.
As a student, he interned at both Morgan Stanley and McLaren Racing and had a short stint at a Louis Vuitton retail store in Paris, according to his LinkedIn profile.
Jean became marketing and development director of Louis Vuitton’s watch division in August 2021 at the age of 23, just months after he graduated. He’s now the brand’s watches director.
Jean told the FT that his older brother Frédéric’s work at TAG Heuer had sparked his interest in watchmaking.
“We have a close relationship and he started talking to me about the new watches and all the different things he was working on,” Jean said. “I was fascinated. And that’s really the turning point.”
Jean told The New York Times in November that he still turns to Frédéric for work advice.
Bernard Arnault may now be the world’s richest man. Meet his 5 ultrawealthy children vying to take over his LVMH empire in a real-life ‘Succession’ plot.
Head of LVMH luxury group, Bernard Arnault (C), his daughter Louis Vuitton Executive vice president Delphine Arnault (L) and his son LVMH Communications head Antoine Arnault (R) arrive to open the exhibition of ‘The Morozov Collection, Icons of Modern Art’ at Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris, on September 21, 2021.
LVMH chief executive Bernard Arnault, who may now be the world’s richest man, according to Forbes, is said to be deciding which of his five children will take over the empire.
The company recently moved to raise its age limit for a chief executive officer so Arnault can stay on.
Arnault has run the luxury conglomerate for decades. His net worth is estimated at $184.7 billion. LVMH includes fashion brands Louis Vuitton and Christian Dior, champagne producer Moët and Chandon, and watch company TAG Heuer.
The CEO could use this time to think about which one of his children will take over, Fortune reported in March, soon after Arnault’s 73rd birthday. The aging patriarch and his five children vying for power closely mirror HBO’s series Succession.
Meet Arnault’s five talented children who could one day run LVMH.
Delphine Arnault
The French businesswoman is 47 and the VP of Louis Vuitton. She attended the EDHEC Business School in Lille and the London School of Economics.
She began her career at McKinsey in Paris, where she worked as a consultant for two years and learned strategy, according to the Financial Times. She acquired experience in the fashion industry while working at designer John Galliano’s company in 2000, helping develop the brand.
Between 2001 and 2013, she started working in the shoe department at Christian Dior and rose to deputy managing director for the executive committee. During this time, she oversaw one of the label’s most successful periods, steering the growth of leather goods, accessories, and communication strategies.
Since then, she has become executive vice president of Louis Vuitton and is in charge of supervising the brand’s product-related activities. She follows a calm management style and tends to visit stores when they are at their busiest.
The successful businesswoman also sits on boards such as Château Cheval Blanc, The Saint-Emilion Premier Grand Cru, Les Echos, Loewe, Pucci’s, Celine, Christian Dior, 21st Century Fox, and Repossi. Since 2009, she has been a member of the supervisory board of M6, and in 2013 she joined the supervisory board of Havas.
Delphine is also a supporter of the LVMH Prize, which allows young fashion designers to be coached by LVMH professionals. In 2014, she was also named one of Fortune’s 40 under 40.
Antoine Arnault
Antoine, 45, is the head of communications and image at LVMH. He is also the chairman of Loro Piana and chief executive of Berluti. The oldest son got his first chief executive role at Berluti, transforming the luxury shoemaker into a menswear label.
In 2002, when Arnault was 25, he cofounded an internet startup and started working in LVMH’s marketing team. He then got his MBA from Insead and, in 2005, rejoined LVMH in the advertising department.
Two years later, he was made director of communications at Louis Vuitton. Under this role, he launched the “core values” campaigns, which featured international figures like Muhammad Ali, Angelina Jolie, Mikhail Gorbachev, and Bono.
In 2011, he launched Les Journées Particulières, in which members of the public were invited to visit the LVMH ateliers and witness the craftsmanship. This festival takes place across 14 countries and encourages LVMH brands to open their doors to the public. He was appointed chairman of Loro Piana two years later, after his father purchased 80% of the cashmere retailer.
In 2018, he took on his current role at LVMH and was tasked with managing the iconic fashion house’s image. A year later, after a personal friend bought Laperouse, a historic Parisian restaurant, Arnault took a minority stake.
Like his sister Delphine and his father, he sits on the board of LVMH. According to the Wall Street Journal, he is married to Natalia Vodianova, a Russian model, and is passionate about golf.
Alexandre Arnault
At 30, Alexandre is fluent in French, English, and German, and the VP at Tiffany.
He graduated from Telecom ParisTech and got a master’s in innovation from École Polytechnique. His digital experience has helped the fashion conglomerate launch 24 Sevres, its e-commerce platform.
In 2017, he was appointed to lead the luxury luggage bag maker Rimowa after LVMH announced that it would acquire an 80% stake in the company. This acquisition was a key move as Rimowa was the last luxury luggage brand left on the market after Samsonite acquired Tumi. The brand influenced LVMH’s digital strategy and collaborations with Supreme, Off-White, and Fendi.
In 2019, he took over his father’s seat on the board of directors at Carrefour, the French supermarket chain. Finally, last year he became executive vice president of product and communications at Tiffany and Co.
In that role, Alexandre has already started shaking things up with his contemporary and modern approach. According to the Wall Street Journal, CEO Anthony Ledru described him as 40% analysis and 60% gut feeling, a go-getter that made things happen sooner rather than later. Thanks to him, Jay-Z and Beyoncé agreed to do the “About Love” campaign for the jewelry company, which featured a Tiffany-blue Basquiat painting.
In 2021, he married Géraldine Guyot, a young designer. The union was first celebrated in Paris and then in Venice. A grand ceremony was held and attended by Roger Federer, Pharrell Williams, the Carters, and Kanye West, who also performed.
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