CFDA names Hildy Kuryk interim CEO after Steven Kolb resigns

The Council of Fashion Designers of America has appointed Hildy Kuryk as interim chief executive following the departure of its longtime leader, Steven Kolb. She will serve while the CFDA's board works with the executive search firm Karen Harvey Consulting Group to find a permanent successor.

The search is expected to take three to six months, and Kuryk is not a candidate for the permanent role, according to The Business of Fashion. She is a caretaker in the plainest sense: appointed to hold the organisation steady, not to inherit it.

Kolb led the CFDA for 20 years. He resigned on 18 September after a viral video showed him physically intervening with PETA protesters who had disrupted the COS runway show during New York Fashion Week, and the backlash that followed.

Who Hildy Kuryk is

Kuryk is a communications strategist who cofounded the boutique consultancy Artemis Strategies in 2017. Its clients have included Condé Nast, Nordstrom and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, so she arrives with a client list that overlaps heavily with the CFDA's own world.

Before that she was executive director of communications at Vogue and Teen Vogue, where she worked directly with Anna Wintour. She still handles press and communications for the Met Gala for Condé Nast and Vogue.

Before moving into fashion media, Kuryk spent 15 years in politics. That included a stint as national finance director of the Democratic National Committee, a fundraising post far from the runway.

What the board said

Thom Browne, chairman of the CFDA board, framed the appointment around the search that follows it. "As we begin the search for CFDA's next CEO, the Board is focused on identifying a leader who can guide the organization into its next chapter," he said in a statement.

Browne added that the board is grateful to Kuryk "for providing steady interim leadership and a strong connection between the Board and staff during this period." That describes the job: during the transition she will act as a link between CFDA staff and the board.

The organisation has said the search will prioritise a leader who can strengthen American fashion, support designers and advance the CFDA's role across the industry. It has not named other candidates or said who else is being considered.

The CFDA has also not said what Kuryk will be paid, or whether she keeps her Artemis Strategies and Met Gala responsibilities while she runs the council. The source material does not address either point.

The programmes she inherits

Earlier this year the CFDA partnered with Ralph Lauren Corp. on two grant programmes supporting fashion manufacturing. One is aimed at New York's Garment District and the other reaches across the country, and both now fall under the interim chief.

The CFDA is also launching a co-created video series, "Voices of Impact", with a partner. It will engage leading industry voices on timely sustainability topics relevant to fashion and luxury goods players, and it continues through the leadership change.

Kolb's exit followed an incident at a runway show rather than a strategic disagreement, and the CFDA's statements so far speak of a next chapter rather than of the episode itself. Browne's remarks do not mention the protest or the video.

Kuryk's mandate is therefore narrow and clearly bounded: keep staff and board connected, keep the Ralph Lauren grants and the sustainability series moving, and hand over to whoever Karen Harvey Consulting Group and the board eventually select.

Kolb's two decades at the top mean the successor will be only the council's next leader after a very long tenure. The board has said it wants someone able to guide the CFDA into what Browne calls its next chapter.

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