About 20 minutes before Exemplar Luxury Group (formerly Saks Global) hosted its first-ever client dinner, CEO Geoffroy van Raemdonck is personally inspecting the place settings and name cards at The Beacon in Sag Harbor, NY. It’s rare that guests and leaders of each of the group’s retailers — Saks Fifth Avenue, Neiman Marcus, and Bergdorf Goodman — come together at one event. “It’s a new day,” says van Raemdonck. Van Raemdonck, formerly the CEO of Neiman Marcus Group, was appointed to lead the retail group in January after former chief execs, Marc Metrick and Richard Baker, stepped down amid the bankruptcy filing. “You can’t manufacture that, or replicate it,” van Raemdonck says, which he sees as the group competitive advantage.