There are individuals in the field of HNWI and luxury marketin

Sôichirô Takaoka is president of Abraham-Holdings Group. He cre

Yû Yamada founded Ucureate, a company specializing on concierge

Tatsuya Masubuchi graduated fromTokyo University and entered De

Paul Goldsmith was born in London, England, and studied structu

Kôchi Tsuchiya started to work for Diners Club Japan in 1989. I

Andreas Dannenberg studied design and photography in Germany an

Fujikawa is an Associate Professor at Hitotsubashi University's Graduate School of International Corporate Strategy (ICS). Mr. Dannenberg from Ad-Comm was the protagonist in a case study that ICS students were studying in 12/2006 about contemporary CRM challenges in Japan, especially in the luxury brand market.

Chieko Takahashi is a senior consultant at the Mitsubishi Research Institute. She finished her MBA program at Kobe Univeristy in 2005. She is the author of the book “The seven new rules in luxury marketing” in Japanese, published in 2006. Besides luxury marketing and HNWI marketing, her specialties are health business and direct marketing. In her book she offers a sharp analysis of the “new rich” market.

Radha Chadha is one of Asia’s leading marketing and consumer insights experts. After working with leading advertising agencies JWT, Ogilvy & Mather, Grey Worldwide, and Bates Asia, Radha establish her own brand consultancy in 2000 in Hong Kong. She has held senior strategic positions, and led the thinking on brands such as HSBC, American Express, British Airways, Glaxo SmithKline, and Mandarin Oriental. Radha is a faculty member of the Tsinghua Ogilvy Branding States Program, a collaborative effort between Beijing’s Tsinghua University and Ogilvy & Mather. She has an MBA from the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, with a specialization in Marketing, and a BA in Math from St. Stephen’s College, New Delhi.

Chadha is one of the two authors of “The Cult of the Luxury Brand” (2006), dealing with the “luxeplosion” that happened in Asia, explaining the effects the democratization of luxury has on the brands, companies and the industry as a whole in different Asian countries. The book draws on over 150 interviews with industry experts and market studies in 10 countries, includingJapan.

Paul Husband is one of Asia’s leading retail centre planning and development consultants. He arrived in Hong Kong in 1988 and began his career as marketing manager for Pacific Place often referred to as the region’s most successful retail centre. Paul and his company work with clients in Hong Kong, Singapore, Taiwan, China, Korea, India, the Philippines, and Thailand, and publish an annual report on the growth of luxury brands in China. Paul is an Asian faculty member of the International Council of Shopping Centres and a member of the Washington-based Urban Land Institute.

Husband co-authored “The Cult of the Luxury Brand” (2006) together with Radha Chadha.

Hirofumi Usui is president of E-Marketing, a company offering services to rich clients, including publishing of the Seven Hills Magazine, a magazine sent exclusively to rich consumers.

Gérald Mazzalovo has a chemical engineering degree from Ecole National Superieure de Chimie de Strasbourg and holds an MBA from Columbia University. A former consultant at Arthur Andersen, he started his career in the luxury industry by working seven years at Salvatore Ferragamo. He has held the positions of president and CEO in luxury companies like Loewe, Bally and Robert Clergerie. He co-authored the books “Pro Logo” and “Luxury Brand Management”, with Meichel Chevalier. He is a visiting professor at Instituto de Empresa (Madrid) and at Istituto Europeo di Design (Milan). He lectures on brands and aesthetics management.

Michel Chevalier holds an MBA and a Doctorate from Harvard Business School. He started his career at the Boston Consulting Groupe. After working for S.C. Johnson he moved into the luxury field. He was manager of Paco Rabanne Perfumes, chairman of Paco Rabanne Fashion, executive vice president of Bluebell Asia Ltd. in Hong Kong and in Tokyo, as well as chairman of the Revillon fashion group in Paris. He is now a consultant for EIM in Paris and office manager of EIM Shanghai. Michel teaches at University Paris Dauphine and Institut Supérieur de Marketing du Luxe in Paris in their Luxury MBA course.

Chevalier is the author of the books, “Pro Logo” and “Luxury Brand Management”, with Gérald Mazzalovo.

As of March 2007, Arnault owns a 47.5% plurality of LVMH (Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton), along with Christian Dior SA and personal holding company Groupe Arnault . Arnault is the Chairman and CEO of all three companies. He is the 14th richest person in the wolrd and number one HNWI in France with an estimated $26 billion in assets according to Forbes report 2007.

1986 persuaded Christian Lacroix to leave Patou and open the house Christian Lacroix. 1987 purchases majority share in Céline, his first luxury goods company. 1988 negotiations with Alain Chevalier (former chairman LVMH) to allow him to acquire a majo stake in LVMH. After Chevalier stepped down, Henry Racamier and Arnault fought for 15 months for control of the group (LVMH affair). The French daily Libération called Arnault “the Machiavelli of finance”. April 1990 Racamier resigned from Vuitton and LVMH. The Vuittons left the avenue Montaigne headquarters, business passes out of the family’s hands (so much for preserving heritage of a brand).

Focus on start brands (timelss, modern, fast-growing, highly profitable). Older brands that were acquired were renovated. New luxury model of Arnault: enhance timelessness, jazz up the design, advertise.

1990 hires Yves Carcelle as head of strategy and development, after few months promoted to CEO and chairman of LV. To refurbish the company’s heritage, Vuitton ad campaigns that romanticized luxury travel were launched, sponsoring of antique car rallies, invited journalists to tour and write about the Asnières workshop. Reintroduction of the Damier checkerboard canvas, launch of retro handbag design. 1996 hired seven cutting-edge designers to reinterpret the canvas and ran the creations as an ad campaign. Arnault wanted the attention of the women’s ready-to-wear shows in New York, Paris, Milan. Arnault hires Marc Jacobs (just fired from Ellis, bohemian, New York inspired, designing expensive clothes for his freinds Sophia Coppola and the guitarist and singer from Sonic Youth). His clothes immediately became critically acclaimed, sold at steep rpices, limited to LV stores. The main function of the ready-to-wear line was to garner headlines and to dress up ads to sell leather goods. Great attention, only 5% of all sales of Vuitton.

Simultaneously, strengthening business side. Carcelle pulled production (70% outsourced under Racamier’s reign) back in-house and increased number of factories from 5 to 14 in 10 years. Control of distribution: control of image. Control of factories: control of quality (Arnault). By 2004, Vuitton earned gross margins of 80 percent.

Dior: Marc Bohan replaced in 1989 after 29 years by Italian Designer Ginafranco Ferré. Givenchy: Arnault hires John Galliano. In 1996 Arnault moved Galliano from Givenchy to Dior (not renewing Ferré’s contract). Alexander McQueen takes over the Givenchy job “Audry Hepburn is dead”. The press dubbes Arnault “Terminator”. “For an European, I have a U.S. approach [...] I face reality as it is and not as I owuld like it to be. I build for the long term.” Many longtime old couture clients fled to more traditional houses such as Yevs Saint Laurent and Chanel. Arnault didn’t care, Couture lost money. A new generation of Dior customers flooded the LVMH brand stores to buy the new hip style. Perfume and handbag sales tripled, and there it is where the big money was.

1999 after spending quietly $1.4 billion to 34,4% of Gucci stock, Arnault launched a takeover bid. The white knight came in the form of Francois Pinault (PPR). He bought 40% of Gucci, for $2.9 billion ($75 a share, 10% less than Arnault). LVMH had a new competitor with the Gucci Group.

Johann Peter Rupert (born 1 June 1950) is the eldest son of the late Afrikaner South African business tycoon Anton Rupert and his wife Huberte Rupert. He is the chairman of the Swiss-based luxury-goods company Richemont as well as of the South Africa-based companies VenFin and Remgro.

1988, partly in response to trade sanctions against South Africa’s apartheid rule, Rupert seperated the luxury brands from the family’s tobacco and mining assets and moved them to Luxembourg and Switzerland, and became CEO of the new group.

“In order to judge the ,ood and judge the future, you’ve got to go to the East. You’ve got to go to South America. You’ve got to walk the streets of New York.

Most of Richemont’s sales are in jewelry and watches. “We concentrate on style rather than fashion.”

1999 buys 60% of Prais jeweler Van Cleef & Arpels, 2002 purchase three luxury watch brands, Jaeger-LeCoultre, International Watch Co., and A. Lange & Söhne, all form Vodaphone. He turned down offers by Tag Heuer, Ebel, Chaumet, and Zenith. “It is also a question of whether you can support the brands you have when times are bad ... In my view, you ultimately create shareholder value better by building goodwill, rather than buying goodwill.”

Rupert keeps his companies independent of one another. “Product integrity has to be more importnat than synergies.”David Ogilvy [the advertising executive] used to say, ‘The consumer is not a bloody fool; she’s your wife.’ The consumer wants to know that Piaget watches are made in the Piaget factory. [That’s] what makes it special. Otherwise it’s just another brand.”