Federico Marchetti

TECH ENTREPRENEUR AND SUSTAINABLE FASHION PIONEER

Founder of YOOX NET-A-PORTER Group, Chairman of The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Fashion Task Force and Board member of Giorgio Armani

Federico Marchetti has been a pioneer in luxury fashion and innovation for over 20 years. In 2000 he founded YOOX, the world’s first lifestyle e-commerce destination; then in 2009 YOOX was listed on the Milan Stock Exchange and became the first ‘unicorn’ business in Italy. In 2015 he led the merger between YOOX and NET-A-PORTER to create the global leader in online luxury fashion, shifting the consumer habits of more than one billion visitors per year in the process. For all these reasons and more he was recognised by The New York Times* as ‘The man who put fashion on the net’.

Since spring 2021, after 21 years leading the company he founded, Marchetti has been focusing his energies on tackling one of the greatest challenges facing humanity today – the climate crisis.

Through his work as Chair of The Sustainable Markets Initiative’s Fashion Taskforce founded by King Charles III when he was Prince of Wales, he is dedicating his tech expertise to finding ways to put sustainability into the heart of the fashion industry. Marchetti believes that pushing the boundaries of intelligent technology will be instrumental in saving the planet by driving much greater efficiency into industry business models and changing customer behaviour.

In 2018, Marchetti pioneered the use of a Digital Passport system at YNAP, he later brought this know-how to the Fashion Task Force. In addition to helping customers make more informed purchase decisions, the Digital Passport helps consumers to care for and ultimately re/upcycle their purchases thus extending their life span.

In 2022, he added a second area of focus to the Task Force: a Regenerative Fashion programme that is designed to restore degraded landscapes through investment from fashion houses in areas like the Eastern Himalayas, returning them to profitable and sustainable cotton, silk and cashmere production.

Alongside sustainability, inclusion and diversity have been central to the responsible approach that Marchetti has adopted in business over more than 20 years. He runs a mentorship program for aspiring entrepreneurs from backgrounds that are typically underrepresented in the industry and is a founding member of the Champions of Change Coalition Global Technology Group, which works to advance gender equality in the tech sector.

In 2017, Marchetti was recognized by the President of the Italian Republic who knighted him as a Cavaliere.

In 2020 Marchetti became the first non-family member to join the Giorgio Armani S.p.A Board of Directors. This appointment has been renewed through until 2025.

In 2021, he accepted positions on the Board of Directors of Highgrove Gardens and the Board of Trustees of The Prince’s Foundation. That same year, Federico joined the Board of Directors of Gruppo Editoriale GEDI, the leading Italian publishing group in Italy for print, radio and digital.

* October 17, 2010