Italian lighting company Flos has named Barbara Corti its first-ever chief creative officer. The appointment of Corti coincides with the conclusion of Flos’s collaboration with Fabio Calvi and Paolo Brambilla, who served as design curators since 2019.
According to a Sept. 25 press release, Flos CEO Robert Silva created the new position as “a way of internalizing a very strategic function while enhancing the talent of a leader at the company who for six years has shown a forward-looking creative and cultural approach that respects the brand’s DNA and values.”
Corti, who holds a degree in architecture, has been Flos’s chief marketing officer since 2017. In 2019, she joined the steering committee, where she worked alongside Silva and the design curators to define brand and product strategies.
Prior to joining Flos, Corti worked for more than a decade as a creative director in communication agencies and for seven years as a creative director at Condé Nast Italia. She also was a consultant and mentor for fashion startups and has been involved in international human rights projects, focusing on the issue of human rights design in developing countries.
In her new position, Corti will lead Flos’s creative & design team, which oversees both product design and content design. The product design division collaborates with the research and development team on Flos’s architectural, decorative, outdoor, and bespoke collections.
Regarding her new position, Corti said in the press release, “I am very thankful for this splendid opportunity and extremely motivated, not only to continue to strengthen the recognized brand identity of Flos, but also to more deeply nourish the inclination to dare and the capacity to explore new territory, which is at the heart of our DNA. My objective is to further strengthen the natural playground that Flos represents for the creativity of our designers, who are, for us, the most important thing.”
Corti will assume her new role in October 2023.