Mango’s CEO on 2023 and How a Challenging Year Became One for the History Books

“This Sunday it will be a year since you left us and even today we still find it hard to assimilate that you are not here”. So begins the letter that Toni Ruiz, president and CEO of Mango, has published today on the occasion of the first anniversary of the death of the company’s founder, Isak Andic. Next Sunday will mark twelve months since the sudden loss of the businessman.

“You left your dream in our hands and from minute one we made it ours,“ the executive says in his missive to Andic, adding that “Mango continues to sail steadily towards new horizons.“ “We were left with thousands of things to do, pending conversations and brilliant ideas and future ambitions that we dreamed of realizing,“ he confesses.

“I would like to explain to you that, despite a challenging environment, we are fulfilling the plan point by point (referring to the company’s strategic plan) and this year that is now ending we have managed to grow our sales at double digits well above the market,“ Ruiz points out. “What could have been a difficult year, together we have transformed it into a historic year,“ he emphasizes.

“This year that is now coming to an end, we have achieved double-digit sales growth well above the market”

Starting with the reference to the product (the focus of Andic’s work once retired from daily management), the now president of the company states that “this 2025 we have opened more than 280 stores, so that today we are approaching 3.000 points of sale in more than 120 countries”, in reference to Andic’s dream of “having a Mango store in every city in the world”.

The executive also focuses on the professionalization process that the company has accelerated in the last fiscal year, separating the family from management and incorporating profiles such as Manel Adell or Helena Helmersson to the board. We have also taken important steps to reinforce our corporate governance model, in line with the process that you envisioned and initiated years ago,“ he points out. “We have done so with the help of renowned professionals from the sector who have joined the board in 2025, as well as with new leaders in key areas of Mango such as Online, Woman and Man.

Mango store on Paseo de Gracia in Barcelona, which has dawned today with images of Isak Andic in the window.

“You’ll also be pleased to know that we continue to work in another area that you always pushed for: innovation,“ Ruiz says, referring to the “waves” of transformation that Andic highlighted as a source of Mango’s evolution. “Artificial Intelligence as you anticipated has become an extraordinary amplifier of the talent of our people, allowing us to create better, decide better and serve better - he develops -; it is a project very consistent with your vision: anticipate the future, lead it and do it taking care of people.“

“Isak, teacher, leader and partner at the same time, exemplary man and inexhaustible source of energy”, is the phrase chosen by Ruiz to close the letter, which ends with a “thank you a million”, an expression that Andic used to use.