Jing Daily launches Global Luxury Leadership Playbook

When Michael Kliger launched Mytheresa’s China site in 2016, the timing looked perfect. The luxury e-commerce platform had momentum, Chinese consumers were showing appetite, and competitors were piling into the market. Then came the corrections. Covid-19 lockdowns shuttered cities. Consumer confidence fell. Regulatory uncertainty made Western executives nervous. Each time, competitors froze China budgets or exited entirely. Board members questioned the investment. Kliger kept spending. Why luxury brands that stay through China’s downturns win long-term “The good ones continuously invest even when sales are down," said Kliger, now CEO of LuxExperience Group. “You stay, you don’t go in and out. Consistency matters. Reliability matters.” That consistency required decisions that looked expensive at the time. Mytheresa hired local teams when competitors relied on regional oversight. The platform maintained marketing spend through soft quarters. Customer service remained high-touch when others automated. In 2017, 2018, and 2019, those choices appeared costly. Today they look foundational to the platform’s sustained performance. Kliger’s bet wasn’t about forecasting when China would rebound. It was about understanding what builds consumer trust. Brands that enter and exit based on quarterly momentum train shoppers to wait for the next sale. Brands that maintain presence through cycles build relationships that compound. Ralph Lauren’s China strategy: Execution over sentiment Ralph Lauren operates from the same playbook. When competitors discuss China through macro sentiment, President and CEO Patrice Louvet talks inventory turns and comparable store sales. The company expanded physical retail during periods when others froze expansion, building what Regional CEO Shin Hwee Chua describes as consumer relationships that compound over decades rather than campaigns that spike and fade. That operational discipline delivered 9% revenue growth in fiscal 2025 while the broader market contracted. Not everyone buys this logic. Critics argue that sustained investment through downturns destroys shareholder value and rewards management patience with poor returns. “Markets cycle faster than infrastructure pays off,” one Asia-focused investment analyst noted recently. “By the time you've built trust, consumer behavior has shifted.” The counterargument centers on opportunity cost — capital deployed in soft markets could generate returns elsewhere. How Sotheby’s Hong Kong Maison turns visitors into next gen collectors But executives building for decades make different calculations. They invest in physical spaces before transaction volume justifies the cost, betting that infrastructure outlasts sentiment shifts. Sotheby’s opened its Hong Kong Maison in 2024 knowing trust takes years to build. CEO Charles Stewart describes younger APAC collectors as researching online but verifying provenance in person — behavior that requires physical presence even as digital channels expand. The Maison wasn't designed for immediate transaction volume but to establish Sotheby’s as an educator in a market where generational wealth transfer accelerates collector formation. Less than a year after opening, the space had drawn one million visitors. UBS built similar infrastructure through House of Craft, creating experiences around client passions — watchmaking, gastronomy, design. Former Global CMO John McDonald described these not as marketing events but as relationship foundations. Conversations at House of Craft gatherings surface months later in wealth management discussions about legacy planning and portfolio construction. The program requires investment that doesn’t appear in quarterly client acquisition metrics but shows up in lifetime client value. This approach only works if executives believe fundamentals remain sound even when sentiment shifts. Kliger’s 2016 China bet required that belief. Louvet’s operational discipline requires trusting that execution compounds over multiple cycles. Both approaches demand patience that quarterly reporting cycles actively discourage. The competitive advantage of patience may not last. As more brands adopt long-term mandates and investors accept delayed returns from China investment, consistency becomes table stakes rather than differentiation. The executives profiled in Jing Daily’s Global Luxury Leadership Playbook aren’t just building for decades — they’re building infrastructure that must remain relevant in 2035 even as consumer behavior evolves. The harder question becomes not whether to invest through cycles, but whether the systems built today can adapt faster than markets shift. This insight is one of four strategic principles identified across 13 executive interviews in Jing Daily's Global Luxury Leadership Playbook. Download the full report for analysis on physical infrastructure investment, sustainability innovation, and global consumer systems

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Luxury’s China playbook: 13 executives speak

How Bottega Veneta weaved China’s forever it bag