Daniel Lalonde is a Canadian businessperson known for heading brands such as Louis Vuitton, Ralph Lauren, Nespresso and Moët & Chandon. After starting his management career with companies such as Häagen-Dazs and Nespresso, he spent ten years at LVMH as president and CEO of LVMH Watches & Jewelry North America, Louis Vuitton in North America, and Moët & Chandon globally. After two years as international president of Ralph Lauren, since 2014 he has served as CEO of the French fashion company :fr:Groupe SMCP|SMCP.
Lalonde remained in Paris after graduating from INSEAD, initially working at a management consultancy firm and at Rothschilds. He "made a name for himself" as managing director of Häagen-Dazs Europe's retail-store division, where he quickly "developed a network of 130 stores in 12 countries, tripling the business." In the mid-1990s, helped launch Nestle's Nespresso brand in North America, serving as Nespresso North America's president and CEO. He also spent five years as Nespresso's global chief operating officer while based in Switzerland. According to The New York Sun, Lalonde is credited with " annual sales from $25 million in five countries to $360 million in 30 countries," with Nespresso reaching "the no. 1 position in global sales for four straight years" during his tenure.
LVMH
In 2002, he was hired by LVMH as president and CEO of LVMH Watches & Jewelry in North America, overseeing brands such as Christian Dior, Chaumet, Zenith, OMAS, and De Beers LV. His first major task at LVMH was to improve lagging sales for the TAG Heuer watch brand; Lalonde focused on "superaffluent" markets, such as the golf community in North America, and redesigned the company's customer service and retail strategies. He also recruited celebrities, such as Tiger Woods, Uma Thurman, Maria Sharapova, and Brad Pitt to take part in watch campaigns photographed by Patrick Demarchelier, with Woods' recruitment as a brand ambassador reportedly leading to a 30% increase in sales. Under Lalonde, TAG Heuer's sales represented over "50% of the growth in the luxury watch market" in the United States in 2004 and, by 2005, TAG Heuer was rated as the No. 2 luxury watch brand. Lalonde served as president and CEO of Louis Vuitton North America from 2006 to 2010, then returned to France to become the global CEO for LVMH brands Moët and Dom Pérignon. In 2010, he became global CEO and president of Moët & Chandon and, in July 2010, was named president and CEO of both Moët & Chandon and Dom Pérignon worldwide.
In May 2014, he became the president and chief executive officer of :fr:Groupe SMCP|SMCP, an internationally expanding French luxury fashion company in which he also became an investor. During his first year of leading SMCP, Lalonde travelled extensively in Asia, the Middle East, the United States, and Europe, with the company posting a 19.2 percent rise in sales for the first half of 2016. Under Lalonde, SMCP became a publicly traded company on the Paris Stock Exchange in October 2017 with a valuation of US$2.5 billion at its IPO. In June 2019, after having reported revenues of 1 billion euros for 2018; Lalonde announced that SMCP will acquire French menswear "Accessible Luxury" label De Fursac, with international expansion planned for the brand.
Currently based in Paris with his wife Yvonne and their three children, since the late 1990s Lalonde has traveled between New York, Paris, and Toronto. He has interests in vintage wine and oenology with private cellars in Paris, France.
