Fabio Maria Damato, the top manager of Ferragni group, leaves the management of the companies. Fenice and TBS Crew communicate this in a note which says that «starting from 16 June 2024, Fabio Maria Damato will cease from
function as general manager and advisor of both companies for
pursue other professional opportunities. The change is part of a process of corporate renewal.”
The centrality of the manager
Before the «Balocco-gate» called into question the adequacy of the managerial structure of a group that had grown at great speed, Damato had progressively assumed a central role in the management system of the Ferragni galaxy.
The powers in the group
He entered the operating companies with leading roles, second only to the delegations of the owner entrepreneur. And his centrality is demonstrated by the powers that until a few days ago he had in the influencer’s safe, the Sisterhood (100% Ferragni) which controls the small empire centered on two companies above all: Fenice and TBC Crew. The first, 32.5% owned, is the licensee of the “Chiara Ferragni” brands and in 2022, the latest financial statement available, it had achieved 15.6 million in revenues with 3.4 million in profit; the second is a “talent agency” that also manages blogs and e-commerce and in 2022 had a turnover of 14.5 million with 5.1 in profit.
Chiara Ferragni’s mother arrives
A clear signal that Chiara Ferragni wanted to make a change in the management of the group was the appointment of her mother, Marina Di Guardo, as de facto general director of the Sisterhood, giving her the same management powers that Damato previously had. It is the (slow) reorganization that comes six months after the Pandori storm. Damato, in addition to Ferragni herself, is under investigation for complicity in aggravated fraud in the investigation into the Balocco Pink Christmas pandoros made in collaboration with the confectionery company.
Who is Damato
The manager has been part of the influencer’s entrepreneurial universe since 2017. Pugliese, from Barletta, studied Business Economics at Bocconi but had already started writing about fashion by following fashion shows. In his Instagram account, sculpted muscles, travel and artistic interests are the main ingredients. He damato – in a Ted Talk right in Barletta – he explained that he had met Ferragni “a few years before, I was a journalist and she was just starting out”. Being a journalist was a job “that frustrated him terribly”, he says, while his colleagues advised him “not to mix with bloggers” like Chiara Ferragni, who are still little considered in the fashion world. Then the intuition to work together: «Together we decided to make noise, we kicked out those who didn’t believe in us». The manager is a figure known to the influencer’s millions of followers because he was also alongside her in the making of the documentary “Chiara Ferragni Unposted”, in which he appears and of which he is one of the executive producers.
