1-4 October 2018: LVMH brings its Open Innovation DARE program to the US
LVMH
·
© DARE US
Last week, the DARE LVMH program (Disrupt, Act, Risk to be an Entrepreneur) – a global talent development initiative based on Open-innovation and coming from startup methodologies – allowed 12 project teams to spent three days developing their innovative ideas into business plans to reinvent the future of luxury.
Through DARE, LVMH harnesses the ideas and creativity of its talents from across its portfolio of world-leading luxury Maisons. In the process, they were challenged by internal and external expert mentors; and a grand jury selected the winning projects which will be implemented inside the Group. Both mentors and Jury members included senior executives from LVMH and its Maisons, as well as external entrepreneurs and CEOs.
From October 1st to 4th, LVMH held its DARE LVMH program for the first time ever in the United States. It was created by LVMH based on the conviction that its own employees are a top source of creativity in working to anticipate the evolution of the luxury sector and to develop future business strategies.
DARE was initiated by Chantal Gaemperle, LVMH’s Group Executive Vice President Human Resources & Synergies in 2017 as a unique worldwide cross-brand, cross-sector and cross-expertise initiative for LVMH employees. It was initially conducted in France, followed by Italy and more recently Shanghai.
“The DARE initiative is a pillar of our talent development strategy. It is an opportunity for our highly innovative and skilled talents to network, discover and share ideas as well as development approaches, to promote a culture of innovation and entrepreneurship within the Group”, stated Chantal Gaemperle, Group Executive Vice President, Human Resources and Synergies at LVMH.
For the DARE LVMH in New York, over 6000 employees across LVMH were invited to submit an idea. Based on this, 60 LVMH talents were selected to participate, broken into 12 teams, which also included students from NYU, the Parsons School of Design, Brown and Barnard College. The teams worked on their project for three days at Camp David, a co-working space in Industry City, Brooklyn, and were challenged by mentors (LVMH Maisons CEOs and Regional Presidents, senior executives and external entrepreneurs and CEOs) to shape and refine their ideas.
On Wednesday, the teams then presented to a grand jury and three final projects were selected to be implemented within LVMH. The jury included Executive Committee members and senior executives from LVMH and its Maisons as well as from other leading businesses such as Rent the Runway, Moda Operandi and others. The winning projects were focused on how to improve the travel retail experience, to optimize visual merchandizing through an app and upcycling waste from the wine industry into the cosmetic sector. The jury also offered a special prize to an app improving the employee experience and skill sharing at LVMH.
On Thursday, the winning teams met with expert coaches from diverse departments across LVMH (environment, digital, IT, HR, finance), to bring their projects to life. These professionals will continue to help them refine their projects so that they can be successfully implemented within the LVMH Maisons. The event concluded with a keynote address from Sheila Johnson, the co-founder of the Black Entertainment Network (BET) and now CEO of Salamander Hospitality, which owns luxury resorts in the US.
The talents who participated in DARE LVMH in NYC– the “intrapreneurs”— all work in the Americas, represented 15 LVMH brands and six nationalities, and came from a wide range of departments and functions. This experience enabled them to share their expertise and experiment with new ways of working in order for their teams to create novel initiatives and strategies that address the future needs of the luxury industry. Having been through the DARE experience, these talents can now be ambassadors of new ways of working, which they will bring back to their LVMH brand colleagues.
Jury
- Toni Belloni, Group Managing Director of LVMH
- Lanessa Elrod, President and CEO of Louis Vuitton Americas
- Chantal Gaemperle – Group Executive Vice President Human Resources & Synergies of LVMH. President of the Jury
- Mary Beth Laughton, EVP Omni Retail of Sephora
- Anish Melwani, Chairman and CEO of LVMH Inc.
- Ian Rogers, Chief Digital Officer of LVMH
- Amand a Baldwin, CEO of Supergoop!
- Jennifer Hyman, CEO & Co-Founder of Rent the Runway
- Daniel Piette, Chairman of First Founders, Former Chairman & Founder of L Capital
- Kabir Shahani, CEO of Amperity
- Ganesh Srivats, CEO of Moda Operandi
- Julie Wainwright, CEO of The Real Real
Mentors
- Davide Marcovich, President of LVMH Latin America /Chandon
- Eric Marechalle, CEO of Marc Jacobs
- Kelly Mc Carthy, Senior Vice President Digital of LVMH
- Jean-Andre Rougeot, CEO of Benefit Cosmetics
- Rodney Williams, President and CEO of Belvedere Vodka
- Andrew Wu, Group President LVMH Greater China
- Dan Habashi, Chief Managing Officer of Soho House
- Lauri Kien Kotcher, CEO of Hello Products
- Mauro Porcini, Chief Design Officer of PepsiCo
- Paul Strachman, Partner of Red Sea Ventures
- Kay Unger, Chairman of the Parsons Board of Governors, CEO of Kay Unger Design
Key figures
- Our call for ideas went out to nearly 6,000 people working for the Group in the Americas
- 60 participants from 6 different nationalities, representing 15 Maisons within the Group were selected
- 12 university students included in the reflection process
- 12 teams
- 11 mentors
- 12 Jury members
- 3 winning teams and projects
- 1 additional jury prize