Net-a-Porter Founder Joins the Board of Farfetch, a Rival

http://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/28/fashion/natalie-massenet-farfetch.html

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Natalie Massenet, the founder of Net-a-Porter and the woman who convinced high fashion that it had a home online, announced on Tuesday that she is joining the board of one of its archrivals, Farfetch, 18 months after she walked away from the company she created.

The 51-year-old Ms. Massenet, who has dual American and British citizenship and is based in London, said she would become a nonexecutive co-chairwoman, alongside Farfetch’s chief executive and founder, José Neves.

“I am a fashion person, but I am obsessed with technology and what will come next,” Ms. Massenet said in a telephone interview. “And I think Farfetch has nailed it in terms of the best business model for this sector in the future.” She added that talks about a move had only begun “seriously” several weeks ago.

A working relationship between herself and Mr. Neves blossomed, Ms. Massenet said, after he joined the board of the British Fashion Council, where she is chairwoman. “I am extremely excited about this new chapter, not least about formalizing my working partnership with José,” she said. “As two passionate entrepreneurs, we enjoy spinning off one another.”

It has been 18 months since Ms. Massenet left Net-a-Porter, shortly after its merger with another e-commerce site, Yoox.

Mr. Neves, who is Portuguese, founded Farfetch in 2008, a global online marketplace for cutting-edge, high-end boutiques, acting as a middleman between independent stores and consumers. The business takes a cut, in the double digits, from a boutique’s margin from each sale. By contrast Yoox Net-a-Porter, the world’s largest luxury commerce site by sales, buys and holds products from brands before selling them directly to consumers.

“I have always been a huge admirer of Natalie,” Mr. Neves said after the announcement. “She opened the door for an entire generation of entrepreneurs and demonstrated that luxury had an online future long before anyone else.”

“She’s a true visionary and we are delighted to have her on board,” he added.

The addition of Ms. Massenet to the group’s leadership team comes at a time of heightened competition and volatility in the online luxury space, as both new and established players jostle aggressively for market share. Ms. Massenet said that, after a decade of received wisdom that suggested online fashion sales were detracting from those made offline, Farfetch had impressed her with the fact that it could boost retail sales via both digital and bricks-and-mortar channels.

“Farfetch is an example of the ‘collaborative economy,’ when businesses historically seen as competitors work together to offer the best possible customer experience and support the world’s luxury fashion brands,” she said. “The industry is undergoing a period of immense and rapid change, so I love that Farfetch can boost both sides of the business.”

The timing of her arrival into the C-suite could prove financially fortuitous for Ms. Massenet; Farfetch, which was valued at almost $1.5 billion in its most recent funding round last year, is reported to be planning an initial public offering for late this year — the same period in which the company could become profitable. Both Mr. Neves and Ms. Massenet declined to comment on the possible stock market float on Tuesday.

Speculation about Ms. Massenet’s next steps has been rife within the fashion industry, ever since her acrimonious departure from Net-a-Porter in September 2015, just five months after it had announced a merger with Yoox. Federico Marchetti, the founder of Yoox, is now the merged group’s chief executive; it generated sales of 1.8 billion euros, or $1.9 billion, a rise of nearly 18 percent from the previous year.

Reports that Ms. Massenet was in talks with Farfetch first surfaced in December. But she had also been linked with numerous venture capital initiatives and the editor-in-chief role soon to be vacant at British Vogue. In December 2015, she also set up a new company called Imaginary Ventures, though she never disclosed further information regarding its areas of focus.

Ms. Massenet said on Tuesday that she looked forward to spending a “considerable amount of time” talking to Farfetch’s majority shareholders about brand partnerships and a number of “exciting strategic projects and developments in the pipeline.” As with most nonexecutive chairman roles, her new position is not a full-time, in-house role.

“One thing I have learned as part of my tenure as chairwoman of the B.F.C. is that while I may not always be there on a daily basis,” she said. “I am — and will — still able to effect and guide a team without always being in the office.”

For some, the arrangement leaves open the possibility that, for Ms. Massenet, taking on another major role is not out of the question.