A pioneer of influencer marketing meets MAFED participants

You are born a visionary, but you can become an entrepreneur. What is not always easy is combining the two. Riccardo Pozzoli seems to have done so at an excellent level. With his natural ability to spot change and anticipate trends, at Bocconi he was able to acquire and fine tune the entrepreneurial method and skills to become a successful digital entrepreneur in the field of fashion. The last step in this journey, where Pozzoli and his team have had a role as incubators, is La Semaine Paris, a D2C (Direct 2 Consumer) apparel retail startup founded by Pozzoli’s wife Gabrielle Caunesil, a model and influencer herself, together with Giorgia Volpi, another Bocconi alumna. Their smart business idea also relates to strong values such as a hands-on commitment to sustainability and the environment.

But Pozzoli’s is not only an entrepreneurial story. His background and professional journey have inspired him to focus on the cultural impact of the new business models in this field and be part of the theoretical elaboration to frame experience. He recently co-authored the book Onlife Fashion: 10 regole per un mondo senza regole with Giuseppe Stigliano and the marketing guru Philip Kotler.

Together with La Semaine Paris’s CEO Giorgia Volpi, Pozzoli shared his experience as a digital entrepreneur with MAFED - Master in Fashion, Experience & Design Management‘s students, introduced by director Emanuela Prandelli, who was his graduation thesis supervisor. Pozzoli participated in the Fashion Marketing courses, when the students gathered in working groups to present an analysis of other D2C brands (Glossier, Rouje Paris etc.) having La Semaine Paris as a benchmark. Pozzoli and Volpi evaluated the positioning of the brands and their strategic and operational marketing choices in detail.

This training opportunity has been especially appreciated not only in view of the outstanding guest speakers but also for a method that directly addressed case studies concerning major companies on the fashion e-commerce scene. It was a way for the students to experience the latest trends in the sector that Pozzoli has pioneered, such as D2C and influencer marketing. And also to support the values that the fashion industry can no longer do without: sustainability above all, to which La Semaine Paris is strongly committed, for instance by participating in 1% Percent for the Planet, the international organization whose members contribute to environmental projects by donating at least 1% of their sales revenue.



SDA Bocconi School of Management.