This decision came as part of the company’s strategic reorganisation and development programme, drawn up and put in place by Roberta Silva, just a few months after she joined Flos as Chief Executive Officer. The company is an essential part of Design Holding, the leading international group in the high-end interior design sector established in November 2018 by Investindustrial and The Carlyle Group, also comprised of B&B Italia, Louis Poulsen and Arclinea, together with their respective subsidiaries.
Following in-depth analysis of the sector and the company, the CEO has rolled out a growth plan that takes a highly innovative managerial approach while fully respecting the brand’s heritage and distinctive identity, a strength which has always been rooted in the culture of design and creative state of art.
This is the first time in the history of Flos that the company has had external product design curators and the concept is very different from that of art director. The intention is to work closely, continually and comprehensively on product development, with the purpose of strengthening product range, stimulating interdepartmental synergy and speeding up development. This role will guarantee continuity with the past in terms of attention to the creative stage behind the idea, while at the same time ensuring a better structured, more efficient product development process for each of the brand’s four collections: Flos Home, Flos Architectural, Flos Outodoor and Flos Bespoke, the latter now 100% owned by Flos. This change will allow Flos to reach the market with a faster, more streamlined production cycle and with a truly integrated vision of lighting products for any application, indoor and outdoor, in this way boosting its competitive strength.
This new role will see Fabio and Paolo working closely with all four Research and Development teams across the collections: the R&D division at the decorative lighting plant in Bovezzo (Brescia); the R&D team at the Flos Architectural plant in Valencia, Spain; the Flos Outdoor R&D division based in Bernareggio (Monza e Brianza); and finally the Flos Bespoke team in Collebeato (Brescia). They will also work alongside CEO Roberta Silva and with the Head of International Marketing and Chief Digital Officer Barbara Corti, together forming a Steering Committee that is almost a tribute to the historic model of the Image Committee set up when Flos was founded in the sixties.
Roberta Silva, Flos CEO, ©Emilio Tini
Roberta Silva, CEO of Flos, said: “Huge changes are underway in the home design and lighting sector. These challenges represent a huge potential opportunity for Flos, considering what our major stakeholders increasingly demand from us and experiences that pioneer companies have already had in other sectors. To successfully guide Flos, we must evolve in the direction taken by the company, preserving strong roots in its values and its DNA, but also innovating strategies and market approaches. Innovations that I am putting in place with my team will especially include improved coordination between the company’s four collections and innovation that preserves the cultural and cutting-edge strength of the past, hand in hand with the exciting creativity of our wonderful designers, in an approach that is more versatile and effective. It is a great pleasure for me to welcome two architects as passionate about design as Fabio and Paolo into the Flos family in the innovative role of Design Curators. Their great culture of design, teamed with a hefty skill set, professionalism and critical spirit, corresponds perfectly to the qualities that we were seeking for this role.”
Paolo Brambilla & Fabio Calvi (Studio Calvi Brambilla), Flos Design Curators, © Emilio Tini
Fabio Calvi and Paolo Brambilla commented: “Flos is a brand that has always turned trailblazing and design innovation into an element of differentiation and uniqueness. We are honoured by the confidence Roberta has shown in us and we are ready to step up to the plate in this exciting challenge. We like to imagine Flos as an art gallery and us as its curators, where the works of art are represented by poetical creations of light and the artists by the great designers who conceived them.”
