Mark Lee’s long dark night of the soul began the day he got his dream job. It was late 2004, and Robert Polet, the new chief executive of Gucci Group, asked Lee to move from his current position – chief executive of Yves Saint Laurent, a job he had held for two years – back to Gucci, a brand Lee had originally joined in 1994.
Polet wanted Lee to be Gucci’s new chief executive. Both Gucci and YSL are in the Gucci Group stable of brands, Gucci Group being one of the three largest luxury conglomerates in the world, in turn owned by the French giant Pinault Printemps Redoute. Going back to run Gucci, which in 2004 had a turnover of €1.4bn and was the star brand of the group, was a fantastic opportunity. That’s one of way of looking at it.
