Page 4 - #201 September 2025

Meets

WHO’S WHO in Retail

Marco Baldassari, Co-Founder & Creative Director, Eleventy

To begin with, what are the key objectives in your leadership journey and how has it
for the business moving forward in the shaped your approach to your role?
coming months?
I don’t describe myself as a pure designer, I would
The key points for the business now are to focus describe myself more as a man that knows the
on our services and the customer experience products very well and knows the market very
during their shopping trips in our stores, from well. So my approach is always to listen to the
the moment they come in to when they checkout. market, to travel, take in many kinds of stores,
So what we try to do is welcome our clients in speak with the people, understand the needs
the best way possible, to make them feel special, of the market and translate all this information
unique and to align all the details of what they myself and funnel this into each new collection
are seeing in-store with what they are purchasing. and proposal. So all the collections in the last 15

years have featured very clean products, no logo,
but made from the best top quality materials for
Has your company’s strategy evolved at all a client who doesn’t need to show off a certain
to address shifting consumer behaviour and brand or logo.
economic changes?

The strategy of the company is to be very trans- How important is marketing and social
parent and make it clear to all of our consumers media within your growth strategy and do
that all of our production takes place in Italy. We you think AI and automation will impact the
are a sustainable company and that traceability retail landscape?
is confirmed by a QR code that we have in every
single piece of our collection. We are genuine with AI is an incredible feature which assists in
our end consumer because they deserve this, espe - acquiring a lot of information in a very short
cially in the retail climate we exist in presently; time and this is very important in our business,
transparency is key. which is all about time. As for marketing and
social media platforms, I strongly believe that
the goal of these is to explain who we are to new
What do you see as the biggest opportunities in and returning customers. We aim to explain the
retail over the next few years and how are you quality and philosophy through our content, this
positioning yourselves to capitalise on them? is our next challenge and it is very important
because social media offers a window to the
The retail business is the focus for the upcoming world 24 hours a day.
years because we truly believe that retail is the I always want to be connected with the brand
best way to highlight who we are and what we and the industry. I want to speak every day with
offer. So over the next five years we aim to open What part does the business play in the all the clients, the consumers and partners to col-
on average five to six stores per year in strategic environment of sustainability and how is lect as much information as I can to translate all
locations. We want to open where our clients are; this concept integrated within the company this and inspire myself for the next collection. My
otherwise we are going to lose money, time and as a whole? inspiration now is to move forward and incorpo-
energy. We have recently launched our Eleventy rate a new trend for Eleventy, so that we remain
café concept in Istanbul as we try to engage our Sustainability is one of our main assets, because a special name in the sector. This is something
customer in a more complete brand experience. we want to be a brand that offers a certain mind- that we always have to take care of, because in
set and a certain lifestyle to our consumers. Sus- our business, when you stand still, you start to
tainability is something we have worked on from decline. So you always have to challenge yourself.
What are your key priorities as a leader and the very beginning, for us it is a kind of continual
have these shifted at all in recent times? progress. Personally, I prefer not to use the word
sustainability, I instead want to be a progressive And finally, any last thoughts for our readers or
The priority is to have the best people around you company that automatically works in this way, is there anything else you would like to add?
because Eleventy is a brand made by people, so because the planet is the priority, so we have to
for us the focus is to be surrounded by people that save the planet as much as we can. Eleventy will continue to try to make its clients the
have passion, drive and love the work that they best version of themselves that can make them
do, spreading the values of the brand everywhere more confident and happy. My goal is to make them
they go. What do you find most rewarding about leading feel younger, cooler and confident and I can prom -
a retail company in today’s climate and how do ise them that we do our best, season by season, to
you personally stay inspired and connected to keep the brand at the best level and offer the best
Who or what has been the biggest influence your brand’s mission? product for the best price.

4 RETAIL & LEISURE INTERNATIONAL SEPTEMBER 2025