DUBAI — What is the secret sauce for developing and managing a family business for long-term success?

While there may not be a cookie cutter response, the question triggered an interesting conversation between the leaders of two generations of the Zegna and Saab families.

On Thursday morning at Dubai’s Opera theater, which has temporarily been transformed into Villa Zegna, and following the Zegna spring 2026 show the evening before, Angelo Zegna, chief executive officer of the Europe, Middle East and Africa region and global client strategy director, recalled how, growing up, school holidays were spent with his parents and his brother Edoardo, chief marketing digital and sustainability officer at Zegna.

“While other prominent families would take their mega yacht and cruise the Mediterranean in August, we would pack and head off to new markets — Thailand, Vietnam, Brazil — which, by the way, were much warmer than Dubai today, so we’re used to this weather,” he said, smiling.

Leading by Example

Speaking of his father Gildo Zegna, chairman and CEO of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group, and underscoring the concept of leading by example, he said those trips were “the best retail school we ever had. And what was, in a way, special to me when I joined the family business four years ago leading the U.S. market was to see many individuals who Dad had hired on our own holidays back in the days, and often these were waiters, hotel concierges, people we met on airlines, believing in young people, giving them a chance. And I think to give him credit, he understood before many in the industry the importance of hospitality and, in a way, we think of our clients as guests. In fact, we call them guests.”

Elie Saab Jr., group CEO and vice chairman of the Elie Saab fashion house, said “a lot of what Angelo said is very relatable to our story as well, because there’s a very blurred line between our life and our work, and most often, we live our work, and it’s part of our life.”

He proudly said his father, Elie Saab, built his namesake brand “from modest beginnings and from a country [Lebanon] that was torn by war and difficulties” and that “seeing him have a very strong vision and a very important dream which at the time was difficult to even think of, taking his suitcase on a boat to Cyprus, then a plane to travel the world and to present his collection, to be able to commit to clients all over the world, is an inspiration on its own.”

He commended his father for allowing him to be able to choose his career, but said that he was so “fascinated by his dream that it was passed on to me. As far as I remember I was three, four years old, working even with the seamstresses in the atelier, with the design team, sitting with him in his office, seeing him create his collections. So really living the heritage of what the brand is today. It is a dream, and I’m very happy to be able to live it today, and I take it with a big responsibility to carry it on to the next generation.”

Gildo Zegna touted the “strong values” and the company founder’s legacy, as “the best example” not only for the family. “One of the things that I’m most proud of is that we have become employer of choice in the luxury world. It means we are doing things well. With positive energy, we believe in creating new dreams.”

“What you saw yesterday were the wings, the future, the innovation and the roots are actually behind these doors, Villa Zegna, the house of the founder. It’s a balance between the two,” his son said. “And we think of ourselves and of the family business as a house where each floor, each generation builds a different floor. We are very respectful of what the previous generations built, but we are here to disrupt that to bring it into the future,” he said, tracing the changes of the company through the years, from the original textile mill to a publicly listed company in New York. He gave a shoutout to his brother Edoardo, who conceived Villa Zegna as “the future of retail, the first step of what it means to go beyond stores. This is a private club for few esteemed guests of the house.”

Nurturing the Legacy

Elie Saab Jr. said that, while legacy remains key, “for sure you cannot sleep on it. On the contrary, you have to keep on nurturing it, keep on shaping and evolving it, because if you don’t do that, the legacy will disappear.”

While he admitted he wanted to become a ski champion when he was young, there is no doubt Gildo Zegna continues to be passionate about leading the company. “If you love something, it keeps you going until the last day of your life.”

Although now a public company, it remains a family business, he said, “but meritocracy and entrepreneurship are very important. This is the main succession plan, and this is what you instill in the new generation.”

Saab Jr. concurred. “You can be part of the journey, but any person needs to have a merit and be qualified to be in the room. There is no entitlement.”

He added that sharing strong values and respecting one another helps overcome any difficulty. “My father taught me everything I know, but most importantly, he gave me the foundation to go through all the challenges in life and never give up and be patient. Patience is something I heard a lot while growing up. By being patient, one day after the other, you build strength, because timing is everything in life, and you have to believe in this and that only hard work will get you there, but not everything will happen at the time that you imagine that it will happen.”

Elie Saab said he was “so glad I can present to the younger generations a success story that can be inspirational. The product is key, elegant and timeless, and never forget the brand’s DNA.”

Sharing that some of the artisans came from Italy to Dubai for the show, Gildo Zegna touted their skills, Italian production, the country’s pipeline and the group’s own vertical organization.

“We live in a beautiful country. We are blessed with fantastic people, it’s like having a second engine that gives extra power at the right moment. There is always talk about stores. I like to talk about the factories because without the artisans, what [artistic director Alessandro Sartori] has done would have been impossible. I think that our biggest responsibility is to keep Italian companies in Italy. I can tell you that we’ll be one of the few [Italian companies] remaining Italian.”

Generations Working Together

Angelo Zegna recalled how, when the company marked its centenary in 2010, John Elkann, chairman of Stellantis, said that “out of 1 million companies, only 44 make it to 100 years. And out of 1 billion, only one makes it to 200 years.” That triggered the Zegnas to ask themselves how to reach the 200-year milestone.

“Both generations started working together. We were young, they were wise.” They mapped out what they call the “family constitution, a set of rules that govern who decides who can sell, who can join the family business. What I thought was particularly interesting was to help us think of a family in three separate spheres — the family, the ownership and the business sphere. And certain members may be in all three spheres, so we say we’re wearing all three hats. For instance, if you take the three of us [Gildo, Angelo and Edoardo], we are family, we are owners, and we’re also in the business.”

“It’s very important to know when you walk into a room which hat to wear. Because when you’re having a lovely Christmas dinner, even if you are the group CEO, you’re wearing a friendly hat. It’s meritocracy. The wife of the cousin matters as much as a group CEO, when instead, you’re walking into a, let’s say, ownership board. It’s more of a plutocracy, right? Who has more shares, has more say in the business, I would say something like a monarchy, where we know who the king is,” he said with a hand gesture toward his father and to much laughter in the audience. “It’s important to be very clear from an early age, what are the rules and what are the hats that you wear.”