MILAN — Stefano Della Valle is succeeding Vittorio Radice at the helm of Central Group Europe, the European arm of Thailand-based Central Retail Corp.
Starting Sept. 1, Della Valle will take on the role of chief executive officer of the retail company, which operates a portfolio of high-profile department stores in Europe, including Rinascente in Italy, the KaDeWe Group in Germany, Magazine Zum Globus in Switzerland and Illum in Denmark. A retail veteran who cut his teeth as managing director of Habitat U.K. and turned Selfridges around between 1996 and 2003, Radice joined Rinascente in 2005 as CEO. Starting in September, he will take on the role of non-executive board member and he will continue to be involved in the company’s decision-making process, dealing with stakeholders and overseeing Central Group Europe’s new openings in Wien, Dusseldorf and Basel, as well as the transformations of the units in Zurich and Geneva.
Della Valle first joined Rinascente in 2006 as chief financial officer, and in 2017, he was promoted to the role of Central Group Europe chief operations officer. Before landing at Rinascente, he worked at Deloitte and covered several executive roles in the Prada Group across Italy and France. One of the gems in Central Group Europe’s crown, Rinascente announced earlier this month it was kicking off the revamp of its flagship on Rome’s Piazza Fiume, which is turning 60 this year. The Roma Piazza Fiume store occupies an eight-story building that was designed by Italian neo-rationalist architect Franco Albini with Franca Helg. The building, which felt highly modern and functional when it was built in the 1960s, is owned by the Megas fund, which is managed by Prelios Sgr.