How Skiing Shaped Menswear Titan Gildo Zegna’s Personality and Drive

“I learned to ski before I learned to walk,” Gildo Zegna says with a big smile. The chairman and chief executive officer of the Ermenegildo Zegna Group can’t hide his passion for skiing, a sport he believes has shaped his character and personality. “The competitiveness allows you to measure yourself with others, and if you prepare yourself mentally and physically, if you work hard, in sports and professionally, you can always raise the bar.” To be sure, the executive walks the talk and has applied his rigor and diligence in growing the family business into a multibillion-dollar, publicly listed group in New York that now comprises the Zegna brand, Thom Browne and the Tom Ford Fashion collections. His photos on the slopes reflect his drive and ambition to beat his own records — after all, he was a competitive skier from the age of 14 to 18 until he moved to the U.K. and the U.S. to complete his education. Gildo Zegna on the slopes His first ski teacher was Mario Ferragut, who in 1956 founded the first ski school in Bielmonte, an alpine town created in the ‘50s by Zegna’s father Angelo and uncle Aldo. Located a 90-minute drive from Milan, it

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