Year
2016
Authors
SOM Ashok, TIDOW Hannah
Abstract
It was the incarnation of the American “From Rags to Riches” dream – In 1967, Ralph Lauren founded a company in New York City to produce ties without any fundamental knowledge of fashion design and managed to turn it into one of the biggest US luxury brands. Despite the success the company had in the past decades, it faced critical challenges in 2015 – ahead of all the retirement of the founder and face of the company, Mr. Ralph Lauren himself. What was going to happen to the company after the founder left? Whom did he choose as a successor and why? The retirement of the 75-year-old CEO came at the same time as sales and profit were struggling and the company was in need to realign its global strategy and reorganize to a simplified and more efficient structure.
TIDOW, H. et SOM, A. (2016). Ralph Lauren: When the king retires, can the brand live happily ever after? ESSEC Business School.