Bernard Arnault was born in Roubaix in 1949 and trained as an engineer at the École polytechnique before taking over his family's construction business. In 1984 he acquired the Boussac textile group, primarily to gain control of Christian Dior, and over the following decades assembled what became LVMH Moët Hennessy Louis Vuitton — now the largest luxury group in the world, with more than seventy houses spanning fashion, leather goods, wines and spirits, watches and jewellery, perfumes and cosmetics, hospitality and retailing.
Under his leadership LVMH has executed transformative acquisitions including Tiffany & Co. and has built leading global positions across nearly every luxury category, making the group's chief executive periodically the richest individual in the world.
Arnault is also one of the most consequential private patrons of contemporary culture, through the Fondation Louis Vuitton in Paris and a sustained programme of architectural commissions across the LVMH retail footprint.