Steven Kolb Named CEO of CFDA
appointed CEO of the CFDA.
Steven Kolb, the longtime executive director of the Council of Fashion Designers of America, has been named the organization’s CEO.
“Steven is a CEO,” Diane von Furstenberg, the CFDA’s president, told Women’s Wear Daily. “This title is long deserved. Steven is the best…He is smart, sensitive to talent and works very, very hard. We started together at CFDA, and I cannot imagine CFDA without him.”
According to Kolb, his day-to-day job description won’t change. “Same job. Same tweets. Just new title,” he wrote July 21 as he fielded congrats from the Twittersphere.
Kolb has a background in non-profits, having worked for DIFFA and MTV’s Staying Alive Foundation, and he often jokes that he got into the fashion world by accident.
“I feel really lucky I ended up here,” he previously told FashionEtc. “It’s really fascinating to be surrounded by creative people. I’m creative in some things, but I don’t think like that, and I’m really inspired when I’m around people like that. But we’re a trade organization and my background had always been non-profits for social issues—particularly HIV and AIDS.”
And though he said at the time that he has “no plans to go anywhere,” he did say that fashion is not the be-all and end-all for him.
“When I walk away from fashion, I’m done,” he said. “There’s this hierarchy in fashion over things like where you sit and what you’re invited to. I’m lucky that I get invited to things and have good seats, but if I never go to another fashion show again, that will be okay.”
