Giovanni Zaccariello, senior vice president of global visual experience for Coach, joined NRF's Retail Gets Real podcast at NRF 2025: Retail's Big Show.
Coach is a visionary of visual storytelling and experiences. Giovanni Zaccariello, senior vice president of global visual experience for Coach, has been with the brand for more than 15 years, helping shape its vision and create a 360-degree customer experience.
“I’ve always been fascinated by the blend of magic and logic and now I’m leaning more toward the magic in my role,” Zaccariello says.
He joins us to shed light on how that magic happens,the evolution of visual merchandising and how he tells Coach’s story to a global audience. He also shares the moment that changed his career trajectory and his advice for taking risks and following your gut.
In the 15 years Zaccariello has worked with Coach, he has helped push forward and expand what it means to tell a visual story. Years ago, that meant setting up dazzling showrooms around the world. His role has since evolved to include pop-ups, experiential stores, events, runway shows, and most recently, the digital experience team. He sees the marriage of physical and digital experiences as where the magic really happens.
“Visual merchandising is incredibly important,” he says, but right now it’s all about the 360-degree experience that customers want to see. “So when you go on the website, when you go into a gaming platform, when you go into the store, when you see a pop-up, everything has to be cohesive. That's why Coach has transformed the team and my scope from visual merchandising into visual experience.”
Zaccariello views his role as harnessing the CEO’s strategy and translating that into a compelling story that Coach can share with its diverse global audience. Coach’s framework for rolling out strategies involves a balance of achieving reliable results with taking risks on new innovations.
He describes the strategy as 70-20-10: “Ten percent is experiments to test and learn, 20 percent is taking the 10 percent that worked and rolling it out to more stores, and 70 is the bread and butter of running our stores. That’s a little bit of the framework that we have internally to roll things out.”
One of the things that Zaccariello is most proud of in his career is saying “yes” to Coach and moving to Hong Kong when he started with the brand. He had never lived there and had no family or support system. Although it was challenging, he’s proud that he bet on himself and stuck to his decision.
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He would advise students and others starting out in their career to take risks. “ I do believe that some of the biggest successes come out of risk taking. So at the beginning of your career, especially for students listening in, it's about sometimes leaning into something that makes you feel uncomfortable. I always say that if I make this decision and I'm so comfortable that I'm doing it with my eyes closed, it's easy, right? It’s not going to change the world. But if it’s uncomfortable for you — if you’re shaking to make the decision — that’s good.”
Listen to the full episode to hear more of Zaccariello’s career advice and how his team at Coach approaches visual experiential storytelling.
(00:01:27) Zaccariello’s career journey
His experience working for Coach in Hong Kong
His background in fashion retail
What he loves about working for Coach
(00:07:17) The evolution of visual merchandising
Adding showrooms and experiential retail spaces
Creating both visual and digital experiences
Building a 360 customer experience
(00:10:25) Telling the Coach story
The balance of delivering reliable results and innovating
Coach’s framework for rolling out strategies globally
Telling a nuanced story for different international audiences
Putting the consumer at the heart of everything Coach does
(00:13:55) Zaccariello’s proudest career moment
The moment that changed the rest of his life
The importance of sticking with challenges
Taking risks and betting on yourself
Zaccariello’s leadership philosophy
(00:19:09) Zaccariello’s lessons and future learnings
Listening to your gut when making career decisions
What Zaccariellowants to learn more about
What he reads, watches and listens to for inspiration
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