"21 Famous Inspirational and Motivational Quotes - Bernard Arnault

 Bernard Arnault CEO and Chairman of LVMH Moet Hennessy Louis Vuitton.

Bernard Jean Etienne Arnault was born on 5March1949 in Roubaix. His mother, Marie-Josèphe Savinel, daughter of Étienne Savinel, had a "Fascination for Dior".His father, manufacturer Jean Léon Arnault, a graduate of École Centrale Paris, owned the civil engineering company named Ferret-Savinel. Arnault was educated at the Lycée Maxence Van Der Meersch in Roubaix and the Lycée Faidherbe in Lille. In 1971, he graduate from the École Polytechnique, France's leading engineering school. 

In 1973, He married Anne Dewavrin, Together having two Children, Delphine and Antoine. They separated in 1990 after that Arnault married Helene Mercier, a Canadian Concert Pianist in 1991 and had Three Kids Alexandre, Frederic, and Jean. Mercier and Arnault live in Paris. All five children Delphine, Antoine, Alexandre, Frederic, and Jean have official roles in brands controlled by Arnault, along with niece Stephanie Watine Arnault.

After graduation, he started his journey at his father's company named Ferret-Savinel. Three years later after he convinced his father to shift the focus of the Co. to Real-Estate, Ferret-Savinel sold the industrial construction division and was renamed Ferinel. At Ferret-Savinel Arnault was its president from 1978 to 1984. In 1984 Arnault then a young Real-Estate developer listened that the French Government was set to choose someone to take over the Boussac Saint-Frères empire, a textile and retail conglomerate that owned Christian Dior. 

With the help of Antoine Bernheim, a senior partner of Lazard Frères, Arnault acquired the Financière Agache, a luxury goods company. He became the CEO of Financière Agache and subsequently won the bidding war for Boussac Saint-Frères, buying the group for a ceremonial one franc and effectively taking control of Boussac Saint-Frères along with Christian Dior.

After Arnault bought Boussac, he laid off 9,000 workers in two years, after which he acquired the nickname "The Terminator". He then sold nearly all of the company's assets, keeping only the Christian Dior brand and Le Bon Marche department store.

In the 1980s, Arnault had the idea to create a group of luxury brands and start working with Alain Chevaliar CEO of Molt Hennessy, and Henry Recamier, president of Louis Vuitton 1980. 

Arnault continued to acquire luxury brands including Fendi(2003), French department store La Samaritaine(2010), Italian Jewelry brand Bulgari(2011), and the Classic American Jeweler Tiffany&Co.(2021). He also built the Fondation Louis Vuitton(2014), a contemporary art museum in the Bois de Boulogne, Paris, designed by Canadian American architect Frank Gehry. In 2007 Arnault was named Commander of the Legion of Honour, one of France’s highest distinctions.

" Arnault has an estimated net worth of US$182.8 billion as of January 2023, according to Forbes, making him the richest person in the world."  

Here are some Inspirational Quotes from Bernard Arnault:

1.“If you control your distribution, you control your image.”

2.“Luxury goods are the only area in which it is possible to make luxury margins”

3. “Affordable luxury - these are two words that don't go together.”

4. “A good product can last forever”.

5. “When something has to be done, do it! In France, we are full of good ideas, but we rarely put them into practice".

6. “I think in business, you have to learn to be patient. Maybe I'm not very patient myself. But I think that I've learned the most is be able to wait for something and get it when it's the right time.”

7. “In the luxury business, you have to build on heritage.”

8. “I like that combination between creativity and the creative process and the organization needed to make a business like this successful worldwide.”

9. “I take time to get close to, and I don't immediately throw my arms around someone.”

10. “When you are on the management side, you still have to understand the artistic sensibility so that there is a dialogue with the creative side.”

11. “It is not enough to have a talented designer; the management must be inspired too. The creative process is very disorganised; the production process has to be very rational.”

12. “What we do in our group is the opposite of the bad effects of globalization. We produce in Italy and in France and we sell to China, when usually it's the opposite.”

13. “From time to time, the Vienna Philharmonic could play without a conductor because they are so good.”

14. “China is clearly going to be the number one economic power and it is already full of potential.. with lots of population and the buying power increasing by the day”

15. “When I was working in my first job engineering construction, what I liked the most was working with architects and making buildings that had this creative side coming from the architect and that were making them a big success.”

16. “I am and will remain a tax resident in France and in this regard I will, like all French people, fulfill my fiscal obligations.”

17. “If you deeply appreciate and love what creative people do and how they think, which is usually in unpredictable and irrational ways, then you can start to understand them. And finally, you can see inside their minds and DNA..”

18. “I meet the designers very often, we discuss the products, they show me their ideas, we discuss the ad campaigns and every new invention that we can find for the future.”

19. “Once we decided to do a tower in New York, it had to say something about our group, reflecting the mix of modernity and creativity in our organization. It's a symbol.”

20. “I've always been pleased with the investments I've made with my friend Albert Frere and I regret not having followed him more, because I would have been a lot richer. ”

21. “Oh, I was brought up in the north of France, and I had a very enjoyable childhood with my family working as entrepreneur.”