Caroline Rush Is Stepping Down as CEO of the British Vogue Council

LONDON — After an action-packed 15 years, Caroline Rush plans to step down in June as chief government officer of the British Vogue Council, and the seek for her successor is on.

The London-based Egon Zehnder is main the search, supported by BFC chair David Pemsel, who has prolonged his tenure to 2025 to make sure a clean transition. An announcement is predicted Thursday.

Rush joined the BFC in April 2009, and her job advanced quickly from supervisor and marketer to fundraiser, lobbyist and disaster controller. Her tenure has spanned seven prime ministers, 5 U.Ok. normal elections, and a slew of challenges triggered by Brexit and the pandemic.

She’ll depart behind a sturdy group, and one which’s now not depending on fortunes of quick trend tycoons or excessive avenue sponsors. The BFC of right this moment depends on a wider group of members who pay dues, particular person donors, private- and public-sector companions.

In the latest fiscal yr the BFC, a not-for-profit entity which is marking its fortieth anniversary this yr, had turnover of greater than 12 million kilos. 

It’s also worthwhile, thanks partly to the efforts of trade buyers Narmina Marandi and Tania Fares, cochairs of the BFC Basis Fundraising Committee, and occasions such because the Vogue Awards, the chief fundraiser for the BFC Basis. 

For Rush, there’s extra work forward.

Throughout London Vogue Week, Rush accompanied Britain’s new First Woman Victoria Starmer to Edeline Lee’s spring 2025 present. A couple of hours later she was at No. 10 Downing Road advocating for the trade throughout a reception hosted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Rush stated she’ll proceed lobbying for change over the following 9 months. Like different trade figures, she needs to see the return of tax-free purchasing in Britain, and for the brand new U.Ok. authorities to strike worldwide commerce offers that may profit designers and types.

“We’re hopeful the brand new authorities will have the ability to create higher buying and selling relationships with the EU particularly, as a result of it has been actually difficult for our designer companies, put up [Brexit]. Now we have a brand new authorities that basically appears to grasp creativity, and there’s a actual alternative to work in partnership with them,” Rush stated throughout an interview at 180 Strand.

She stated if she may ask the federal government one factor earlier than she steps down, it will be to revive tax-free purchasing. 

“We’ve acquired the proof, we all know the advantages it will convey to the U.Ok., to companies and to the Treasury. It’s not about costing the nation cash, however about supporting the trade, creating alternatives and delivering revenues. I’ll proceed to champion that,” Rush added.

The latest Conservative authorities axed the tax-free program in 2021, preferring to gather the VAT relatively than give vacationers a break on their high-end purchases.

She and Pemsel have additionally been strategizing on behalf of the trade. On Oct. 30, the BFC plans to launch a report that appears at the right way to commercialize creativity and discover alternatives for progress in an trade that immediately contributes 28.9 billion kilos to Britain’s GDP, and employs greater than 800,000 folks.

Selling London as a artistic and industrial capital, and wielding the comfortable energy of trend is vital — though it’s by no means been straightforward. 

Not like Milan, Paris and New York, London isn’t underpinned by huge luxurious teams, public corporations or buyers. There may be little or no manufacturing within the U.Ok., and exports are costly because of the robust pound.

Lots of the labels that ultimately acquire traction have a tendency to indicate or promote in Paris, whereas armies of British-educated designers typically depart the nation to work overseas.    

Those that stay want cash to develop, and so London has grow to be a artistic incubator. The BFC spends a lot of its time mentoring and elevating cash for schooling, rising expertise and younger companies.

Rush has embraced these challenges, and argues that London is “one of many higher locations to begin and develop a designer enterprise due to the help buildings, and the unbelievable neighborhood that will get behind designers.”

She enjoys working with younger designers, “serving to them work out the type of enterprise that they need to be, or whether or not they need to be in a design room for one of many larger manufacturers or the retailers. It’s an actual privilege to be hand-holding these younger, growing, artistic companies within the very early levels,” she stated.

Rush additionally admires the resilience of Britain’s artistic companies. “During the last 4 or 5 years, we’ve had Brexit, the pandemic and the challenges in wholesale, however they [spawned] new enterprise fashions and methods of pondering, which have continued to encourage us and assist us take into consideration the help methods that should be in place,” she stated. 

That’s why fundraising and growing partnerships is such an enormous a part of the job. 

In her speech at Downing Road on Monday, Rush addressed the tax-free problem with the prime minister and requested the federal government for assist in delivering “accessible, low-cost finance for trend companies” that would ultimately entice non-public capital.

The BFC already works intently with the British authorities. Final yr, the federal government division for tradition, media and sport pledged 2 million kilos over two years to help the BFC’s NewGen scheme for younger designers. The most recent recipients embrace Di Petsa, Aaron Esh, Chet Lo and Paolo Carzana. 

Throughout her lengthy tenure, Rush has additionally been working different financing angles.

Two years in the past, underneath former chair Stephanie Phair, the BFC inked a cope with the enterprise capital agency Venrex to help progressive companies and create a brand new funding pipeline for the council’s schooling and expertise packages. Thus far, 17 clothes, tech- and sustainability-focused companies have acquired funding.

In 2016, the BFC modified the format of the annual Vogue Awards gala and started staging the occasion at Royal Albert Corridor. Its goal is to lift a complete of 10 million kilos in 10 years with the cash going to the BFC Basis, which helps college students and rising expertise with schooling, grant-giving and enterprise mentoring. 

When she’s not elevating cash, or mentoring creatives, Rush spends time in harm management. Earlier this yr, the BFC tried to cope with the affect of the collapse of Matches, which Mike Ashley’s Fraser’s Group positioned into administration shortly after buying it at a knockdown value.

Matches’ sudden demise, the unpaid orders, and the directors’ fireplace sale of stock was — and continues to be — a shocker for the trade. It got here simply as companies started to recuperate from the pandemic, and in opposition to an more and more tough backdrop for luxurious.

Rush and her workforce tried to melt the blow, and join crisis-hit designers, comparable to Roksanda Ilincic, with potential buyers. Ilincic ultimately discovered a white knight in The Model Group, which bought her trend label in Might. She stays artistic director.

Rush stated that following Matches’ demise, “there was a chance for us to leverage the community, to get data to designers, help them, and defend the ecosystem.” On the time, the BFC was additionally having conversations with the federal government about the way it may assist trend entry emergency finance. 

Even earlier than the Matches disaster, the BFC was connecting designers with buyers.

“We do play matchmaker, however from an funding perspective I all the time give full credit score to the designers. Until the investor likes the founder and the plan, they’re not going to be” placing their cash behind it, Rush added. 

The collapse of Matches was the newest in a collection of bone-chilling moments for the trade, with Brexit and the pandemic topping the record.

Rush stated Britain’s vote to depart the EU in June 2016 not solely prompted misery throughout the trade, it additionally triggered a funding emergency for the BFC. 

“The British trend trade and the artistic communities felt so near our European counterparts — a lot commerce was carried out inside Europe. There was a friendship, and a [professional] community” that spanned the Channel, stated Rush.

What most individuals didn’t know, she stated, was that following the Brexit vote the EU instantly froze its funding for London Vogue Week — 4 years earlier than Britain really left the union. 

“The vote was in June, trend week was in September, and the entire grants had been placed on pause. If these funds hadn’t come by, it will have been actually difficult to have delivered that trend week,” stated Rush. 

She added that because of the BFC’s “affect, community, and relationships in any respect totally different ranges of presidency, we had been capable of have conversations. I believe ours was the one grant that was launched throughout that summer time interval to allow London Vogue Week to happen.”

A yr after the EU funding drama, Rush argued British trend’s case earlier than the Home of Commons. She addressed the Tradition, Media and Sport committee in regards to the affect that Brexit was having, and would have, on cultural industries, tourism and the digital single market.

Rush testified alongside the designer Ozwald Boateng and the U.Ok. Vogue and Textile Affiliation, addressing matters starting from manufacturing and exports to patent rights and immigration.

Little did she — or anybody else — know what different crises had been in retailer.

Simply as Britain was saying au revoir to the EU, the pandemic arrived, prompting the BFC and its companions to present emergency assist to designer companies. The hastily-formed BFC Basis Vogue Fund raised 1.5 million kilos throughout lockdown to assist help 67 designers and companies.

Donors included Alexander McQueen, Amazon Vogue, Browns, The Coach Basis, Burberry, Depop, the European Regional Improvement Fund, JD.com, the Mayor of London, Paul Smith, Revlon Skilled, and The Bicester Village Buying Assortment.

That very same spring, the BFC additionally hurriedly put collectively a digital showcase for designers who had been set to unveil their summer time 2021 assortment throughout London males’s trend week in June.  

These actions, and a number of different, non-emergency initiatives, together with the London Present Rooms worldwide commerce present program and the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design (received this yr by S.S. Daley), had been by no means carried out in isolation.

Rush credit her workforce, and the BFC chairs with whom she’s labored — Harold Tillman, Natalie Massenet, Phair and Pemsel — with crafting a imaginative and prescient for the group and the designers alike.

“I’m extremely pleased with what we’ve achieved during the last 15 years, and I’ll be leaving the British Vogue Council in a robust place,” stated Rush. “Now we have constructed the revenues, the reserves, the working capital, and all the great enterprise disciplines that you’d think about. And there’s nice governance throughout the BFC,” she stated.

Rush isn’t leaving for an additional job, and stated it simply “felt like a superb time handy over the baton, and begin an thrilling new chapter” for her and for the BFC, in a metropolis that continues to defy expectations.