Yahoo Finance Home Decor Firm Alessi Hires Former Furla CEO Alberto Camerlengo
MILAN — Italian home decor firm Alessi said Monday that former Furla executive Alberto Camerlengo is its new chief executive officer as the company continues to focus on international growth and innovation. Camerlengo succeeds Daniel Talens, who left the company last December to take on the top role at Bisazza, a glass mosaic and outdoor decor firm, in February.
Camerlengo, who studied economics at the Bocconi University in Milan, joined Furla in 2011 as chief operating officer, before rising to the role of CEO in 2017. In the 1999 to 2004 period, he was chief operating officer of Fossil Italia. After leaving Fossil and until 2011, he was CEO of Brooks Brothers Europe.
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During Design Week in Milan, Alessi pivoted its approach, revealing a series of products that set the tone for a new chapter amid an ongoing strategy to refresh the brand. The lineup included designs from Cypriot-born, London-based designer Michael Anastassiades with his sleek Menhir coffee moka, Japanese designer Naoto Fukasawa with 102-year-old Japanese dyer Samiro Yunoki with their Eugenia glassware, and another with the influential Japanese design Studio Nendo with their Toru tea kettle.
The company’s rich history began 103 years ago with a brass and nickel silver sheet workshop and foundry and after the ’80s the business became a home decor powerhouse. Over the decades, Alessi garnered international recognition for its envelope-pushing designs from architecture and design‘s most colorful icons — Ettore Sottsass, Aldo Rossi, Achille Castiglioni and Philippe Starck, among them. Alberto Alessi, the grandson of founder Giovanni Alessi, has been a catalyst of the brand’s international expansion. He officially joined the company in 1970, a time when Alessi shed its industrial past and evolved into a creative design hub.
In a statement, the company lauded Camerlengo’s business acumen and “success in guiding and developing winning business strategies.”
“His appointment is a source of great satisfaction for us, as we are confident that his vast experience and expertise will be decisive in meeting the emerging challenges in the market. We are confident in his entrepreneurial vision, energy and interpersonal skills, which we consider essential for the achievement of our business goals,” Alberto Alessi said.
