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“Our aim is to create the biggest luxury brand management agency in the world.” Karla Otto is talking about the announcement, this week, that the public relations company she founded in 1982 is to merge with K2, the Asian-based events, design and production company co-founded by the French entrepreneur Isabelle Chouvet in 2002.

It makes for a mighty combination, uniting one of the fashion industry’s most powerful public relations groups, with 35 years of experience and scores of luxury clients (including Valentino, Céline, Swarovski and Berluti), and an events company with a particular expertise in a notoriously tricky market. The merger will combine more than 400 experts from different fields and an enviable global reach. That its executives are both women, still a rarity in the male-dominated world of luxury leadership, is an extra boon.

Although each company will continue to operate under their respective brand names, the merger will see the emergence of a new group, The Independents, which will harness their diverse services to offer clients “a complete global communications, events and marketing service for the fashion, luxury, beauty and lifestyle industries”, says Chouvet. “We want to acquire other related agencies as well,” adds Otto. “This is the plan.”

In a way, the deal echoes the merger last year of the talent agency CAA with Global Brand Group (GBG), which created a “super”-agency for brands, creatives and event management in the entertainment space. Though smaller in scale, The Independents will offer a one-stop shop for luxury brands looking to co-ordinate their global profile.

“To take the best in class in the different fields in our industry, and group them together,” says Chouvet. “That’s what clients need today. The market is so big and so different, it’s too complicated for them. So that’s what we’re trying to answer.”

Otto and Chouvet started talking about the possibility of a merger two years ago, when they were introduced by mutual acquaintances. “Although we had circled the same areas for years, we had never met,” says Chouvet. Players on quite different stages, both women have come to hold a powerful influence within the worlds they occupy.

Otto is a sleek-haired German style arbiter who speaks multiple languages and began her career, in Tokyo, as a model before realising her future lay in communications.

“My first office was two rooms in a beautiful location in Milan, doing the international PR for Fiorucci in 1979 . . . ” she says. (Otto has always masterfully sidestepped the question of her age, but jokes that she “goes back a very long time”.) She began consulting for the Japanese market shortly after, and started her own agency after having worked with Adriano Goldschmied, who had a series of brands, including Diesel, Katharine Hamnett and the shortlived but successful Bobo Kaminski. “That’s how I started,” she says. “Totally casually.” As grand a character as many of the names she looks after — she’s always recognisable during fashion month for her chameleon-like ability to quick change between the brands she represents — she has enjoyed a three-decade reign and cultivated a peerless portfolio of clientele.

Chouvet started her career at the French employers’ federation Medef, where she was in charge of managing the business events in the Middle East and Asia. She co-founded K2, with her husband and a third partner, in Tokyo, at a time when brands were only first beginning to realise the potential of the Asian market, and opened a second agency in Shanghai almost immediately. She now commands a unique understanding of the local attitudes and markets that characterise the area’s different territories. “In Asia we’re the only company able to create and execute across the whole region,” she says. “Imagine, you’re launching a new lipstick or you have a new high jewellery collection coming up and you need to do an event in Japan, one in China and one in Korea, and you need to make sense between those three. It’s much easier to brief one agency who has the production capabilities in those three countries than one in each country.”

The mistake brands make in trying to penetrate Asia, she continues, is in the lack of synergy in their planning. “Most brands still brief agencies in each country. And that’s very difficult to control. That’s why they are interested in what we’re proposing. We have an existing team who know the needs of the clients and who are able to adapt any global proposition with a very local execution.”

The new company, which has received a first investment of more than $60m from the private equity firm Cathay Capital, with additional support from European Capital and Tikehau, will allow them to fill any gaps in their portfolio. Both women have resisted investment in the past and will remain the largest shareholders of the new company, along with Otto’s long-term partner Alexander Werz.

Otto was persuaded to take investment because she felt she “couldn’t take the business any further” on her own. Chouvet feels similarly liberated. “You know, at some point or other, entrepreneurs feel they cannot continue alone,” explains Chouvet. “By being together in a group you can, of course, bring more value to your clients, but also to the people working for you, which is the key. I really wanted to move on, because the way we’ve developed our business is to answer client needs, and our clients kept saying to me: ‘OK, what you’re doing now in Asia is great. Why can’t you help us in Europe or the US?’ ”

The pair are quickly drawing up a shopping list of possible acquisitions. Chouvet is especially interested in developing new business in the US, which is still “the biggest market with the biggest growth this year. I have a big territory to play with now,” she adds, “because we have all these offices in Europe and in the US, so that is the main target for now.” She’s also keen to get her hands on Otto’s guest lists.

Otto, meanwhile, is looking towards Asia: “Let’s just say, in communication, we’re focusing on Japan.” She has never opened a Tokyo office, something she says she should “have done 20 years ago at least”, and she strongly believes the future lies in Asia. “We just had the figure from Nielsen. In the next 10 years, 60 per cent of total global economic growth will come from China.” Reports aside, the potential is palpable. “We both work there. We can feel it. We can see it. I hear people say: ‘Oh, the growth in China is not as strong. But it’s still much stronger than anywhere else.’ ”

She’s also eyeing other office spaces nearer home. In the post-Brexit landscape, I suggest Frankfurt might be a starter. “I don’t know why I never opened an office in Germany,” she shrugs. “And I’m German.” Or what about Dublin? “No,” she recoils. “It’s raining too much.”

As to whether the union will put a strain on the executive order, both women are confident they will work well together. The last time I did an interview about a significant fashion merger, between Yoox with Net-a-Porter, the question of seniority became quickly contentious. This deal establishes Chouvet as chief executive of The Independents and Karla Otto as its co-chair. Otto will remain chief executive of her namesake company. So, who’s the boss here?

“Who’s the boss?” echoes Otto. “I don’t know.” For the time being, they are describing their relationship as “a partnership”. And a relief.

“Until about seven, eight years ago, I worked very much on my own,” says Otto. “I was the only senior person in my company. I opened seven offices. Alone. Believe me, it’s a lot of work. For both of us, this is a means for us to stay important. To offer more services and become even more important to our clients. That doesn’t mean a client who’s working with Karla Otto necessarily needs to take the services of K2.” Or vice versa, adds Chouvet. “It’s just we offer that,” continues Otto.

However it works out, they’re planning long-term. “We’re preparing for the next 50 years,” says Chouvet. And they’re ready for the challenge.

“When you always work in the same company,” says Otto. “You need to . . . ” Shake it up? I suggest. “Yes”, they reply, in unison. Watch out boys.