Rose Marie Bravo is an American businesswoman. During her career, she has occupied leadership positions in several major fashion businesses and is now vice chairman at Burberry, of which she was CEO from 1997 to 2005. Bravo, whose Italian-born father owned a hairdressing business in the New YorkBronx, attended the elite public Bronx High School of Science and went on to study English literature at Fordham University. She graduated cum laude and joined Abraham and Straus' department store at Long Island as a buyer in 1971. In 1974, she was recruited by Macy's. When her company bought I. Magnin she continued to work there until the bankruptcy of Macy's in 1992. After five more years as President and Chief Merchant of Saks Fifth Avenue, and member of the Board of Directors of Saks Holdings Inc., Victor Barnett hired her to be chief executive of Burberry. In her new job she initiated a radical reform of the British classic brand and improvements of the company structure. Her strategy included signing top modelKate Moss and recruiting the young designer Christopher Baileyin 2001, who was working for Gucci at that time. The Burberry line of products was greatly increased and especially the newly added perfumes contributed to the company's raising profits. With Bravo as a CEO, Burberry managed to expand greatly on the US market. The company's sales doubled from US$470 million to US$1 billion. The same happened to the profits, e. g. in the six months before September 30, 2003 they increased to a total of US$115 million. In recognition of her work, she earned a reputation of being one of the top female business people. For instance, New York'sWall Street Journal listed her in its 2004 top 50hall of fame, Fortune Magazine ranked her #13 in its 2004 and 2005 lists of "The 50 most Powerful Women in Business" outside the US. In 2005, Burberry announced Bravo would step down for Angela Ahrendts. After a 6 months transitional period, Bravo retired as a CEO and became vice chairman of Burberry.
