On Wednesday, Campari Group announced that CEO Matteo Fantacchiotti has resigned after just five months in the role, citing “personal reasons.” Fantacchiotti joined the Campari team in January 2020 as the head of Asia Pacific operations before replacing Bob Kunze-Concewitz as CEO in April 2024.
“It has been a privilege for me to be part of Campari Group for almost five years and to lead this organisation since April 2024,” Fantacchiotti said in a press release. “While I have now taken the decision to leave, I express my deepest gratitude to all stakeholders, particularly the Chairman, the board of directors and the leadership team.”
Fantacchiotti’s resignation is effective immediately, and according to Just Drinks, the search for a replacement is already underway. The effort is being led by Kunze-Concewitz, who retained a non-executive director position after his retirement as CEO. Kunze-Concewitz will also serve as the chairman of the newly formed leadership transition committee. In the interim, Campari chief financial officer Paolo Marchesini and general counsel Fabio Di Fede will serve as joint chief executives and assist as executive members of the aforementioned committee.
The announcement of Fantacchiotti’s departure comes on the heels of the company purchasing a minority stake in Capevin Holdings Proprietary Limited, which controls Scotch distiller Bunnahabhain. Notably, comments from Fantacchiotti were missing from the Campari Group’s press release regarding the acquisition, an unusual exclusion for announcements of this sort. The resignation also comes just days after Fantacchiotti allegedly described U.S. demand as “soft” during an investor call, causing Campari’s share price to fall and prompting the company to publish a clarifying press release.
In the September 13 release, the company argued that Fantacchiotti’s comments did not apply to Campari-specific performance, but rather to the spirits industry at large. “The Company made comments on general trends related to publicly available third party sell-out data,” the document states. “Some of the softness that has been seen in the first half of this year is persisting slightly longer than expected into the third quarter in the industry. No comments were made related to Company specific performance.”
Despite the shift in leadership, chairman Luca Garavoglia says that Campari’s ambition for growth remains strong.
“We have a very solid future ahead of us thanks to our robust organization, our global footprint, and particularly our unique portfolio made of some of the most admired brands in the spirits industry,” he said in the release that announced Fantacchiotti’s resignation. “In continuity with the past, we’ll continue focusing on building our brands to keep on generating profitable growth and industry outperformance in the long run.”
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