Liberty appoints a Representative Director to head up their Tokyo-based business

Naruhiko Kamata is a highly regarded and experienced retail operator, who has led the Japanese businesses of such brands as La Perla, Valentino, and Hugo Boss. Society are pleased to announce his appointment to the position of Representative Director for Liberty of London’s Japanese subsidiary business.

Liberty is internationally recognised as a leader in print design and textile innovation. Established in 1875 by Arthur Lasenby Liberty, they have produced original and inspiring designs for over 141 years.

As Representative Director of their Japanese operation, Kamata will be responsible for defining and executing Liberty’s wholesale business development strategy for Japan and growing their presence in APAC markets. Liberty Fabrics is the textiles arm of the world-famous Liberty of London brand and has been located in Tokyo for 26 years. Based in Tokyo, with mills spread around the country, and set on rapid expansion with both wholesale and retail, Liberty Art Fabrics supply the world’s top designers with their hand-created patterns on the highest quality fabrics.

Society was tasked with this recruitment by Liberty’s private equity owners BlueGem Capital. This particular assignment was deemed by many to be too challenging, given the business culture and language considerations. Our research team rose to the challenge, producing an extremely talented and diverse field, which ultimately led to Naruhiko’s appointment.

Naruhiko joins Liberty having completed his exit of La Perla where he was, until recently, Managing Director of their Asia/Pac business. With extensive apparel and luxury experience under his belt (including time at Céline, where he worked directly with Michael Kors) Liberty’s new Managing Director has a huge amount to offer the business and many exciting ideas on how to continue and rapidly develop the brands success in the Asian and wider global market.

We look forward to watching his positive impact on the business and wish him every success in his new post.