Alison Loehnis

The diverse career trajectory of Net-a-Porter president Alison Loehnis — which includes roles at Saatchi & Saatchi, Disney and LVMH — has equipped the American-born executive with the interdisciplinary, creative leadership skills across fashion, business and digital she has employed at the online luxury conglomerate since her arrival in 2007.

Loehnis was born to an advertising account manager mother and a father who was an executive in the beauty industry. She grew up on Manhattan’s West Side and attended Brown University in Rhode Island. She spent summers working at the Ralph Lauren store in East Hampton. After graduating with a degree in Art History, Loehnis began her career in advertising at Saatchi & Saatchi in New York in 1992, where she worked as an assistant account executive and worked on General Mills cereals.

After a year, Loehnis took a position in corporate communications at magazine publisher Hachette Filipacchi Magazines. A connection she formed at Hachette led her to a new role opening Disney’s office, which saw her becoming creative executive within a year and working to develop features and films alongside playwrights and authors. At the height of the internet bubble, Loehnis pursued a role at a startup called KPE, a now-defunct digital agency with clients such as Hearst, in business development and account management. After three years, the company sent her to their London offices — Loehnis never left.

Her next stint was at LVMH, working on global sales and marketing for men’s shirting company Thomas Pink. After five years at LVMH, Loehnis was approached by a headhunter during her maternity leave. Shortly after, Natalie Massenet brought Loehnis on as vice president of sales and marketing in 2007. In this capacity, Loehnis performed key roles in major projects such as the launch of TheOutnet.com in 2009 and MrPorter.com in 2011, the same year she was appointed president. During her executive tenure at Net-a-Porter, Loehnis was credited with introducing new streams of revenue, expanding product offerings and spearheading the launch of Net-a-Sporter. In 2015, she was featured on Vogue UK’s Power List of London’s most influential people.

Months after the announcement of the deal to merge Yoox and Net-a-Porter in late 2015, chief executive of the new Group Federico Marchetti promoted Loehnis to the role of president in-season of Yoox Net-a-Porter Group in February 2016. Today, she is responsible for Net-a-Porter and Mr Porter, as well as the media and publishing division, which formerly included Porter, The Edit, The Journal and others, but now consists of Porter magazine and The Edit.