#ABtalks Business with ZEGNA | Chapter 2 | مع زينيا

Professor.

You're a friend.

I have to be very thankful to my parents, to their parents and to their parents. The answer is it's very important that you have some very strong values of who you are. So how do you keep it 115 plus years? It's that clarity of who you are. Yeah, and treat it like a baby, like you need to attend the baby.

I felt strong before, now I feel even stronger because I think we did the right thing. And I think that the timing has been perfect. And we are very happy to have it done. And I think that is the best way to show what the export of Made in Italy can do.

I think boredom is a super undervalued concept because boredom incentivates, propels creativity, figuring out stuff. In today's world, we're so bombarded by everything. I mean, you know, our phone being the first enemy. God, boredom is such a beautiful thing.

I started to call it with my team, I'm like, please schedule a dumb day.

I want a day that really I don't do much, because then it's like...

If you're a busy human, where do you get ideas? Either in the toilet or in the shower because you're bored.

You're like, oh, yes, I should. And you think of something.

Otherwise, you're always distracted. So I completely agree.

I started 1981. In the States.

But, you know, I've been doing the job as CEO for 20 years.

Because, you know, I love it because it's my company, it's my passion. And, you know, my life is what I do. And I think that it's like a mission brought by a passion. And, you know, I work weekends, I work nights. And it's a continuous dream, fulfilling a dream and carrying on the mission of the Zegna brand to new heights. I would do it even when I'm going to be retired, you know. I'll make myself available and I will make myself known. It's a personality that you cannot stop. But I think this challenge gives me adrenaline and I think that adrenaline is what you need to make sure that your metabolism stays young and your brain keeps producing new thoughts.

Why do I do this? So I'm fourth generation and the company is 115 years old. But in many ways, the company just started. We launched the book a year ago in Salone del Mobile, 2024, April 2024. But I'm referencing this book because it was a very important moment for me as a person that is family, it's ownership, but it's also business. And it made me even more proud of the business in that moment, writing the book Born In Oasi Zegna. And the title was very important for me because everything is born in Oasi Zegna. My great grandfather was a crazy, crazy person. I would call him, you know, in the bucket of people, the crazy good people, the people that you kind of want to hang out at the dinner table. In 1910, he decided to create a wool mill in the mountains north of Turin, northwest of Italy. And he believed that the well-being of its employees was the most important part of his success. He could not have success without the well-being of the employees. So he built a hospital, he built a school. He bought 100 square kilometres of land. And then he planted half a million trees. And he didn't do it for money. He didn't do it for ego. He didn't do it for fame because nobody really knows about this place. He did it because there is a beautiful scent of it, because it felt right. And doing things because they feel right is always, I think, a romantic, beautiful idea. And actually, to your question, why do I do it? Because I feel a weird sense of responsibility to, if I work in this business and if I can contribute in this business, in order to really pay homage to the founder, I need to be a bit as crazy as he was. I have a sense of responsibility in adding a page of this book that is this family. Like ultimately, I think I do my job well if I'm able to, as a brand, help you and us expand yourself, your persona. Like if I help you add layers to you and the brand mark, the two stripes that we have on the products that we have on our shoes, I want that to be the window into our world. The business we're in is not about products, it's about stories and feelings and emotions.

Man, COVID was the hardest for me. Like it was a World War III for the company, you know. My grandpa went through two wars. My father went through half war. I went through war, COVID and business was down. I would say, yeah, retail and production were at 50 percent, five zero. So it was dramatic. So thank God we were pretty robust in financing and we had no debt. Otherwise, we would have gone really, really bad. I created a committee. We call it a turnaround committee. Try to cut costs, but also prepare yourself to the comeback. Then the IPO came in '21. That was another good thing. But thank God we went to the IPO leaner and with that mindset, with that new mindset. So I think that the question is, would we have been prepared for the IPO if it wasn't COVID? Probably not. We came out more fit, more focused, and more target driven. And so the IPO was a kind of a natural step and we got blessed. I remember the day of the IPO, arrived in New York Friday night and there were 20,000 COVID cases in New York, 20,000. The IPO was Monday. We had, I put together an emergency committee to decide whether we should go or not go. That was the hardest decision ever. Let's go, guys. We are prepared. We know what we're doing. Let's go. That is the biggest decision taken on my own. And I was right.

My number one KPI in the business is the most intangible KPI of all. In everything I do, whether it's advertisement, whether it's an event or an experience or anything, the question is, how much did it make you feel? Real luxury in my mind. It's not about facts. It's about feelings. So the story of a cappuccino that I like to say internally in the business, now apparently is becoming an external story. It's about a hypothetical idea of convincing you to buy a $20 cappuccino. How do you buy, how can I sell you a $20 cappuccino, okay? I will sell you a $20 cappuccino only if I make you feel different. Like, there is a feeling thing. And I cannot quantify this. It's about giving you an extra layer, you know? You'll never remember exactly what me and you talked about today in this talk, but you always remember how I made you feel or how you made me feel. And I think that's spectacular, that's stupendous as a sentiment.

You mean to be on your talks?

No, I agree. I mean, you see the challenge for me is like, I agree with you. But how do you scale that?

It's more about the best ideas are always unscalable and then figure out a way to make them scalable.

It's compounded.

Interesting.

The window.

I like the quote, Edoardo... 'Always grateful, never satisfied.' I think I live my life this way. Myself personally, as health, here... do my show better, do an interview better, be sharper. So I hope or I think you might relate to that.

The worst they could do is put their ego in front of the company. To me, this is the one they do it, they're totally wrong. And they're going to, it's going to be like a snowball effect. So put your ego behind, take a humble approach, lead by example and listen to your people. As age goes by, I'm less impatient. I listen more. I don't react as I used to. I sleep over and then I come back and maybe I change my mind. I say, oh, guys, sorry, I changed my mind. And you were right or you were wrong. So I think that the worst out of direction decision in taking this more relaxed approach that initially slowed down my impetus and it gave me the impression to lose power or to lose control. Absolutely not. Again, control. Often silence is more control than just shouting. And this is some of the learning I've took and that's what I consider the best action for the stakeholder.

I'll give you another analogy that I've always liked is this idea of like, you know, in your life, you're juggling balls. Every year, new balls come in. And if you think now, ten years ago imagine you ten years ago, juggling the balls, you would have like, dead like this. And now you've just become better. Why? Because I think, this is my perspective, it's like, the most important thing about juggling balls you need to know which one of the balls are made out of crystal. And they cannot fall. And so you need to identify what are those balls and make sure that those balls will never fall. And the way to deal with burnout is allowing some of the other balls to fall down but know which one they cannot fall. Because at the end of the day, everything else if it went exactly the opposite, yes, it would have changed margin, but ultimately the big piece would have not changed. So to me, this is the largest investment we've ever done in our business, in the history of our business ever. Doing this in Dubai, taking over this opera house, building all of this fashion show, Villa Zegna experience. I mean, when I saw it, I just like, I want to figure it out. It's like, it makes sense. It's the right timing. This is the centre of the world. It's perfect. I have a concept. I want to do it. And we pulled it off. And so we created a private club in Dubai for a week in the opera house, I mean.

I only care about one thing. How much do they care? How much do they care about the baby? We're talking about the baby being the brand. How much do you care about him? About it? It's only about care. Because if you care, they're going to figure it out.

The heart. And the heart is Oasi Zegna. I love the brand to become the slowest brand in the world. I love the idea that we're conceived as the slowest brand in the world. It has to do with speed of services, of reacting, of delivering, of customer service, of... It's the slowness in which we create a product, conceive a product and the fact that this product can last forever.

Yes, I would say yes, because first of all, we haven't done shows forever. We were used to do shows in Pitti, then we left Pitti and it was a bold decision to move from Pitti to Milan. Has been a bold concession and I think it worked out for all of us, for you guys, for us, for Camera della Moda and for what Italy, made in Italy can do if you want to do it. I think there are no limits. So I think it's a sign of a pioneering spirit and of sharing something together, which is very good.

Because Dubai is the centre of the world today. I was looking at the data yesterday and every month in our store in Dubai Mall, we have a hundred different nationalities that are purchasing, a hundred. Because energy that I felt in Dubai and the business growth and the team, strong team we have, made these results possible. It's a country in which for the past two years we have been growing the highest in terms of percentage. So it means that the market is here. It means we are doing something well. And it means that we are well liked by the local. I was very pleased to meet the CEO of Dubai Tourism and a lot of the ministers within Dubai as a whole. And what really shocked me in a positive way was their clarity of what they want to do. I mean firstly, they're not run like a government official. They run like a private institution. I think it's phenomenal. When I sat down the first time, he said, you know what, Dubai today, the goal was visit. The next goal I have is live and work. Basta! You've said everything. This place, Dubai, is a vision. The founder had a vision and he made it happen. I think this show will contribute to make the brand strong across the Gulf. In terms of marketing, it's a fantastic opportunity we played. I think we work very well with the local government, they are fantastic people. And I think this is what we share with them. It's their vision, the pioneering spirit, the business sense and to do things extremely well. So we found the collaboration quite amazing and probably is the thing that impressed me the most that I did not expect this collaboration by the local people that understood that through us they can amplify the Dubai experience.

Very much so. Yeah. But I have the fortune to have a very strong woman and a smart woman close to me. And so, I mean, she knows more about me than myself. But probably the hardest decision, yes, I've taken on my own. When you have to decide where to take the family business next, it was my decision. And it was my proposal to the family, then to the board. And right or wrong, thank God it was the right decision. I had to support it fully and believe in it. Often, change brings you a hard decision.

And change can be very uncomfortable. And very harmful. And I think that when you have to do serious changes, yes, you are on your own. And you take your own risk. And you have to be responsible, you know, either way. But I must say that I enjoy taking decision. I enjoy taking risk. This is probably the hardest things to do for a man of power or for leaders. To accept when they're wrong. To admit when they're wrong. To admit the mistake and being able to react and turn it around.

It's hard. I mean, it's very hard to manage a business that tells stories. I mean, you have to remember, we make clothing. You know how complicated it is to make clothing? And so being able to manage that across everything, across the story, across the flow, across everything. I mean, it's a glorified work, but like doing it is like, it's really hard. I'm becoming prouder of the work I'm doing, we're doing and so forth. And as a consequence, I'm more centred in who I am. So having had the opportunity to change and evolve the brand made me feel more proud about the brand. And as a consequence, be more centred as a whole. You know, in a family business, there's three layers. It's family, ownership, and business. The most glorified of all is business. I think what me, my brother, my generation needs to do is to glorify ownership. Because being an owner and being a shareholder, it's a very important job. I don't think it's glorified enough. And we need to add more pride in the ownership part. I think the hardest thing is to be able to wear the three hats. And be able to respect that hat and to have a relationship with your kids and your family and so forth.

It makes me feel very happy that they're on board. Bless the gene.

What's the vision in one sentence?

Thank you, Mr. Crazy.

Thank you, Professor.