Federica Marchionni has led many companies, from Ferrari and Dolce & Gabbana in her native Italy to serving as CEO of the American retailer Land’s End. But in the middle of the pandemic, she saw the top job open up at the Global Fashion Agenda, a Danish organization committed to helping the fashion industry become more sustainable.
“When I saw the Global Fashion Agenda was looking for a CEO, the first thing I did was I went to church to pray,” she tells me. “I really wanted this position. It was the middle of the pandemic: I was stuck in Italy and couldn’t move to Denmark, where the GFA is based. But it ended up working out.”
Over the past three years, she’s transformed the mission of the GFA from merely making sustainability a priority in the fashion industry to making the industry a force for good in the world. The GFA is bringing renewable energy to manufacturing hubs in Bangladesh, ensuring fashion workers in Cambodia and Vietnam have access to safe, well-paid work in clothing factories, and supporting startups developing fabric recycling technology.