Alexandra Rossi to run off-season at Yoox-Net-A-Porter, Martines moves to APAC role

By

Sandra Halliday

Published
Apr 3, 2017

Alessandra Rossi has been named President, Off-Season at Yoox-Net-A-Porter group (YNAP) with the executive returning to the firm to run the giant Yoox and Outnet units that offer designer and premium labels at discount prices.

On Monday the company also announced a new focus on expansion in the Asia Pacific region.

London-based Rossi had, until spring 2015, been Managing Director of Yoox and now returns to replaces Luca Martines, who is moving to a key new role at the group. Martines previously reported into her when she held the MD’s role. She will continue to work from London where YNAP’s Outnet business has its HQ.

Off-price is a huge business for YNAP with Yoox itself having been founded on the concept of heavily discounted merchandise from mass brands up to ultra-luxury. The Outnet meanwhile was launched as a major spin-off from Net-A-Porter and features a more edited selection of on-trend off-season designer label merchandise. Set up with a similar profile to full-price older sister Net-A-Porter, it adds a strong luxury edge to buying at a discount.

YNAP said that Rossi’s “proven management skills and long-standing relationships within the luxury fashion industry position her perfectly to grow [its] leading share of the online off-price luxury goods market.” The company saw total sales of €1.9bn globally in its last set of results.

Rossi’s job will now be to drive growth in the off-season offer through a combination of “increasing the high-value customer base, international expansion, and growing the depth and quality of the product offering.”

As the results of Net-A-Port rival Matchesfashion showed only last week, the combination of reaching high-spending consumers and targeting them around the world offers massive growth potential for any online business in the luxury space and YNAP clearly sees major room to grow despite its already-sizeable market share.

But the business also has ambitions to grow further in full-price and while Rossi and Martines will work closely together during a transitional period, after that Martines will move to a new role overseeing YNAP’s expansion is Asia Pacific. The company open Monday described the APAC region as “a core growth market.” Martines will sit on the boards of the firm’s Japanese and Hong Kong units.

Rossi meanwhile will be a key figure at the firm and will report directly to YNAP CEO Federico Marchetti.

She is a seasoned online luxury executive with experience at Bulgar before taking on a variety of roles at YNAP from Operations Manager and Head of Buying to Commercial Director and the MD’s job. She originally left the firm when she moved to London in April 2015 for family reasons.