A luxury career takes a turn toward the fairway
For most of the last decade, Thomas De Stio worked in rooms where the merchandise came with a certain hush. Tom Ford. Loro Piana. Gucci. Roger Vivier. These are names that whisper rather than shout, and De Stio spent years learning how they sell themselves to people scrolling on a phone at midnight. In August 2024 he traded that world for one with a very different soundtrack: the crisp thwack of a driver on a summer morning.
De Stio is now Chief Marketing Officer of Summit Golf Brands, the Manhattan company behind B. Draddy, Zero Restriction, Fairway & Greene, and EP New York. It is a new seat at the table. The company had never had a CMO before, which tells you something about the size of the bet. Hire a person who has run digital commerce for the most exacting houses in fashion, and point him at the golf wardrobe.
On paper it reads like a swerve. In practice it is a straight line. Luxury is not really a category, it is a standard, and De Stio has spent his working life carrying that standard from one arena to the next. The question he now gets to answer is whether the discipline that sells a cashmere coat can also sell a rain shell built for the back nine.
"I'm eager to leverage my experience in digital and e-commerce to elevate our brands, enhance our customer experience, and drive our business into the future." — Thomas De Stio, on joining Summit Golf Brands
From LVMH to the links
Read the list backward and a pattern emerges. Every stop was a premium product sold to a discerning buyer, and every stop asked the same thing of him: make the buying feel effortless. He specializes, as the company puts it, in the full spectrum of digital operations - concept, strategy, execution, and the unglamorous work of reading the numbers afterward.
The through-line is not a logo. It is a habit of putting the customer at the center and building everything else around that fixed point. It travels well. Loro Piana and a golf polo have more in common than the fashion press might admit: both live or die on fit, feel, and the promise that the person wearing it made a good decision.
Four brands, one point of view
Summit Golf Brands is not a single label but a portfolio, and each piece has its own accent. B. Draddy leans preppy and playful. Zero Restriction is the technical-outerwear name built for weather. Fairway & Greene trades in classic, considered menswear. EP New York carries a metropolitan edge. De Stio's job is to give four distinct voices a shared sense of purpose without flattening them into one.
That is the harder version of marketing. Anyone can run a campaign for one brand. Conducting several at once, each with its own customer and its own weather forecast, is closer to running an orchestra. The instruments are already good. De Stio was hired to make them play together.
Portfolio character, at a glance:
"Thomas has a track record of success everywhere he has been. He drives innovation in digital marketing and growth in e-commerce by putting the customer first." — Jack Lessing, President, Summit Golf Brands
- Appointed the company's first-ever CMO
- Reports directly to the president
- Based at the 5th Avenue, New York headquarters
- Placed by executive search firm The Talent Studios
What he brings to the tee
A new kind of seat
His arrival created a brand-new CMO role on the leadership team, a signal that Summit sees marketing as a growth engine rather than a support act.
Fashion-grade fluency
Few golf executives can say they ran worldwide digital for Tom Ford. De Stio can, and he brings that vocabulary to a category still finding its digital voice.
Growth track record
At LoveShackFancy he drove measurable growth in the online business and lifted brand awareness, the kind of result Summit wants repeated across four labels.
Customer-first instinct
The phrase that follows him from job to job is simple: put the customer first. It is easy to say and hard to do, and it is his organizing principle.
Multi-brand command
Managing ecommerce across Tod's, Roger Vivier, Hogan, and Fay was rehearsal for conducting a golf portfolio with four different personalities.
Quiet-luxury schooling
Time at Loro Piana, the patron saint of understatement, taught him that the loudest thing a premium brand can do is get the details right.
A few things worth knowing
- Before golf, his career reads like a luxury shopping guide - Tom Ford, Gucci, Loro Piana, Roger Vivier, Hogan, Fay, and Tod's.
- Summit Golf Brands holds apparel licenses spanning more than 125 colleges and universities.
- The company operates out of a 5th Avenue address in Manhattan, not exactly a country-club setting for a golf firm.
- He was recruited into the role by The Talent Studios, which also placed the company's CFO.
The short version
Who is Thomas De Stio?
He is the Chief Marketing Officer of Summit Golf Brands, a New York-based premium golf apparel company, appointed in August 2024.
Where did he work before?
He held digital and ecommerce leadership roles at LoveShackFancy, Tom Ford, Loro Piana (LVMH), Tod's Group, Gucci, Luxottica, and Lacoste.
What brands does he oversee?
He leads ecommerce and marketing strategy across B. Draddy, Zero Restriction, Fairway & Greene, and EP New York.
Who does he report to?
He reports to Summit Golf Brands president Jack Lessing from the company's New York City headquarters.
What is his expertise?
Digital business operations, ecommerce, and marketing - from strategy through execution and performance analysis, with a customer-first focus honed in luxury fashion.