Arie L. Kopelman
| Arie L. Kopelman | |
|---|---|
 |
|
| Born |
September 23, 1938 Boston, Massachusetts |
| Education |
Johns Hopkins, BA Columbia Business School, MBA |
| Occupation | President and COO of Chanel Inc. (1986-2004) Vice Chairman of Board (2004-present) |
| Spouse(s) | Coco Kopelman |
| Children | Jill Kargman, Will Kopelman |
Arie L. Kopelman (born September 23, 1938) is an American businessman and philanthropist. He served as the President and COO of Chanel from 1986 until 2004, when he retired and was succeeded by former Banana Republic President Maureen Chiquet. Kopelman remains at Chanel as Vice Chairman of the Board.
Kopelman was born in Brookline, Massachusetts to Jewish parents, Frank and Ruth Kopelman. Frank Kopelman, a Harvard Law School graduate, practiced law and was a professor at Boston University. When he was appointed to a judgeship in Boston, he was the youngest judge appointed in the state’s history. Kopelman has a twin brother, David Kopelman, who followed in the footsteps of their father, attended Harvard for his undergraduate and law degrees, and went on to become a judge.
After attending The Boston Latin School and the Williston Northampton School, Kopelman completed his undergraduate at Johns Hopkins University and received an MBA from Columbia Business School. His first job after business school was working in the training program at Procter & Gamble, at their headquarters in Cincinnati, Ohio. After three years at the company, he became an account executive at the advertising firm Doyle Dane Bernbach (also called DDB Worldwide), where over the next twenty years he ascended the ranks to become Vice Chairman and then the General Manager. During his tenure at DDB Worldwide, Kopelman worked with clients including JB Liquors, Heinz Ketchup, and Chanel, which was one of his largest accounts.
In 1985 the owners of Chanel, Alain Wertheimer and Gérard Wertheimer, hired Kopelman as Chanel Inc.’s president and chief operating officer at their headquarters in New York City. At that point, Kopelman already had a 14-year-long working relationship with Chanel through DDB, where he had crafted advertising campaigns for the brand. Over the next 19 years at Chanel, Kopelman grew the brand to expand its core retail, fragrance, cosmetics, skin care, eyewear, and accessories businesses, transforming Chanel into a company earning multi-billion dollar revenues. At the outset of Kopelman’s career with Chanel, the brand had two standalone boutiques and its annual revenue was reported at $357 million. By the time of his retirement, there were 17 brick-and-mortar boutiques just in the United States and in 2014, Chanel reported annual sales in the area of $7 billion.
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