EXCLUSIVE: Caroline Rush Is Stepping Down as CEO of the British Fashion Council

LONDON — After an action-packed 15 years, Caroline Rush plans to step down in June as chief executive officer of the British Fashion Council, and the search for her successor is on.

The London-based Egon Zehnder is leading the search, supported by BFC chair David Pemsel, who has extended his tenure to 2025 to ensure a smooth transition. An announcement is expected Thursday.

Rush joined the BFC in April 2009, and her job evolved rapidly from manager and marketer to fundraiser, lobbyist and crisis controller. Her tenure has spanned seven prime ministers, five U.K. general elections, and a slew of challenges triggered by Brexit and the pandemic.

She’ll leave behind a sturdy organization, and one that’s no longer dependent on fortunes of fast fashion tycoons or high street sponsors. The BFC of today relies on a wider group of members who pay dues, individual donors, private- and public-sector partners.

In the most recent fiscal year the BFC, a not-for-profit entity which is marking its 40th anniversary this year, had turnover of more than 12 million pounds. 

It is also profitable, thanks partly to the efforts of industry investors Narmina Marandi and Tania Fares, cochairs of the BFC Foundation Fundraising Committee, and events such as the Fashion Awards, the chief fundraiser for the BFC Foundation. 

For Rush, there is more work ahead.

During London Fashion Week, Rush accompanied Britain’s new First Lady Victoria Starmer to Edeline Lee’s spring 2025 show. A few hours later she was at No. 10 Downing Street advocating for the industry during a reception hosted by Prime Minister Keir Starmer.

Rush said she’ll continue lobbying for change over the next nine months. Like other industry figures, she wants to see the return of tax-free shopping in Britain, and for the new U.K. government to strike international trade deals that will benefit designers and brands.

“We are hopeful the new government will be able to create better trading relationships with the EU in particular, because it has been really challenging for our designer businesses, post [Brexit]. We have a new government that really seems to understand creativity, and there is a real opportunity to work in partnership with them,” Rush said during an interview at 180 Strand.

She said if she could ask the government one thing before she steps down, it would be to restore tax-free shopping. 

“We’ve got the evidence, we know the benefits it would bring to the U.K., to businesses and to the Treasury. It’s not about costing the country money, but about supporting the industry, creating opportunities and delivering revenues. I will continue to champion that,” Rush added.

The most recent Conservative government axed the tax-free program in 2021, preferring to collect the VAT rather than give tourists a break on their high-end purchases.

She and Pemsel have also been strategizing on behalf of the industry. On Oct. 30, the BFC plans to release a report that looks at how to commercialize creativity and find opportunities for growth in an industry that directly contributes 28.9 billion pounds to Britain’s GDP, and employs more than 800,000 people.

Promoting London as a creative and commercial capital, and wielding the soft power of fashion is key — although it’s never been easy. 

Unlike Milan, Paris and New York, London isn’t underpinned by big luxury groups, public companies or investors. There is very little manufacturing in the U.K., and exports are expensive due to the strong pound.

Many of the labels that eventually gain traction tend to show or sell in Paris, while armies of British-educated designers often leave the country to work abroad.    

Those who remain need money to grow, and so London has become a creative incubator. The BFC spends much of its time mentoring and raising money for education, emerging talent and young businesses.

Rush has embraced those challenges, and argues that London is “one of the better places to start and grow a designer business because of the support structures, and the incredible community that gets behind designers.”

She enjoys working with young designers, “helping them figure out the kind of business that they want to be, or whether they want to be in a design room for one of the bigger brands or the retailers. It’s a real privilege to be hand-holding these young, developing, creative businesses in the very early stages,” she said.

Rush also admires the resilience of Britain’s creative businesses. “Over the last four or five years, we’ve had Brexit, the pandemic and the challenges in wholesale, but they [spawned] new business models and ways of thinking, which have continued to inspire us and help us think about the support systems that need to be in place,” she said. 

That’s why fundraising and developing partnerships is such a big part of the job. 

In her speech at Downing Street on Monday, Rush addressed the tax-free issue with the prime minister and asked the government for help in delivering “accessible, low-cost finance for fashion businesses” that could eventually attract private capital.

The BFC already works closely with the British government. Last year, the government department for culture, media and sport pledged 2 million pounds over two years to support the BFC’s NewGen scheme for young designers. The latest recipients include Di Petsa, Aaron Esh, Chet Lo and Paolo Carzana. 

During her long tenure, Rush has also been working other financing angles.

Two years ago, under former chair Stephanie Phair, the BFC inked a deal with the venture capital firm Venrex to support innovative businesses and create a new funding pipeline for the council’s education and talent programs. So far, 17 clothing, tech- and sustainability-focused businesses have received investment.

In 2016, the BFC changed the format of the annual Fashion Awards gala and began staging the event at Royal Albert Hall. Its aim is to raise a total of 10 million pounds in 10 years with the money going to the BFC Foundation, which supports students and emerging talent with education, grant-giving and business mentoring. 

When she’s not raising money, or mentoring creatives, Rush spends time in damage control. Earlier this year, the BFC tried to deal with the impact of the collapse of Matches, which Mike Ashley’s Fraser’s Group placed into administration shortly after purchasing it at a knockdown price.

Matches’ sudden demise, the unpaid orders, and the administrators’ fire sale of inventory was — and continues to be — a shocker for the industry. It came just as businesses began to recover from the pandemic, and against an increasingly difficult backdrop for luxury.

Rush and her team tried to soften the blow, and connect crisis-hit designers, such as Roksanda Ilincic, with potential investors. Ilincic eventually found a white knight in The Brand Group, which purchased her fashion label in May. She remains creative director.

Rush said that following Matches’ demise, “there was an opportunity for us to leverage the network, to get information to designers, support them, and protect the ecosystem.” At the time, the BFC was also having conversations with the government about how it could help fashion access emergency finance. 

Even before the Matches crisis, the BFC was connecting designers with investors.

“We do play matchmaker, but from an investment perspective I always give full credit to the designers. Unless the investor likes the founder and the plan, they’re not going to be” putting their money behind it, Rush added. 

The collapse of Matches was the latest in a series of bone-chilling moments for the industry, with Brexit and the pandemic topping the list.

Rush said Britain’s vote to leave the EU in June 2016 not only caused distress within the industry, it also triggered a funding emergency for the BFC. 

“The British fashion industry and the creative communities felt so close to our European counterparts — so much trade was done within Europe. There was a friendship, and a [professional] network” that spanned the Channel, said Rush.

What most people didn’t know, she said, was that following the Brexit vote the EU immediately froze its funding for London Fashion Week — four years before Britain actually left the union. 

“The vote was in June, fashion week was in September, and all of the grants were put on pause. If those funds hadn’t come through, it would have been really challenging to have delivered that fashion week,” said Rush. 

She added that thanks to the BFC’s “influence, network, and relationships at all different levels of government, we were able to have conversations. I think ours was the only grant that was released during that summer period to enable London Fashion Week to take place.”

A year after the EU funding drama, Rush argued British fashion’s case before the House of Commons. She addressed the Culture, Media and Sport committee about the impact that Brexit was having, and would have, on cultural industries, tourism and the digital single market.

Rush testified alongside the designer Ozwald Boateng and the U.K. Fashion and Textile Association, addressing topics ranging from manufacturing and exports to patent rights and immigration.

Little did she — or anyone else — know what other crises were in store.

Just as Britain was saying au revoir to the EU, the pandemic arrived, prompting the BFC and its partners to give emergency help to designer businesses. The hastily-formed BFC Foundation Fashion Fund raised 1.5 million pounds during lockdown to help support 67 designers and businesses.

Donors included Alexander McQueen, Amazon Fashion, Browns, The Coach Foundation, Burberry, Depop, the European Regional Development Fund, JD.com, the Mayor of London, Paul Smith, Revlon Professional, and The Bicester Village Shopping Collection.

That same spring, the BFC also hurriedly put together a digital showcase for designers who were set to unveil their summer 2021 collection during London men’s fashion week in June.  

Those actions, and a host of other, non-emergency initiatives, including the London Show Rooms international trade show program and the Queen Elizabeth II Award for British Design (won this year by S.S. Daley), were never done in isolation.

Rush credits her team, and the BFC chairs with whom she’s worked — Harold Tillman, Natalie Massenet, Phair and Pemsel — with crafting a vision for the organization and the designers alike.

“I’m incredibly proud of what we’ve achieved over the last 15 years, and I’ll be leaving the British Fashion Council in a strong position,” said Rush. “We have built the revenues, the reserves, the working capital, and all the good business disciplines that you would imagine. And there’s great governance within the BFC,” she said.

Rush isn’t leaving for another job, and said it just “felt like a good time to hand over the baton, and start an exciting new chapter” for her and for the BFC, in a city that continues to defy expectations.