Chanel appoints three new directors amid exec shift

French luxury brand Chanel has appointed three new directors amid an ongoing shift of its executive team, filings with the UK’s Companies House have shown.

Simone Bagel-Trah is among the two appointments. The German businesswoman has served on the supervisory board of Henkel AG & Co. since 2001, and from 2009 became chairman of the chemical and consumer goods firm.

From April 2014, Bagel-Trah has also been a member of the supervisory board of pharmaceutical company Bayer AG.

Bagel-Trah is joined on the Chanel board by Teresa Yuk Yin Ko, the founding partner of law firm Freshfield’s Asia equity capital markets practice and serves as the company’s China chairman.

Former partner and vice chairman of Deloitte UK, William Touche, has also been nominated as a director.

The latest onboarding will mean that Chanel’s board will be evenly split between male and female members from April onwards, marking yet another notable shift in management at the company, which named Leena Nair its chief executive officer in 2022 and Matthieu Blazy creative director in 2024.