Leena Nair on Leading with Empathy and Compassion

Full Transcript

Note: This transcript was generated by an automated system and has been lightly edited for clarity. It may contain errors or omissions.

 Ayesha Karnik: Welcome to View From The Top: The Podcast. I’m Ayesha Karnik, an MBA student of the class of 2025.

Michael McDowell: And I’m Michael McDowell, a producer at Stanford Graduate School of Business. Ayesha, talk about the conversation we’re going to hear today.

Ayesha Karnik: Yeah, so I had the most incredible opportunity to sit with Leena Neir. She’s the global CEO of Chanel, spent decades at Unilever before that, and she just has such a candid conversation about her beginnings, she’s from the same place in India that my family’s from, and I think she just had so many inspirational things that she shared from her past experience, her time at Chanel that everyone and, and especially women aspiring to be in her position can really, can really learn from.

Michael McDowell: That’s fantastic. So how did you prepare for the conversation? Like take us behind the scenes just a little bit.

Ayesha Karnik: So I probably listened to dozens of hours of interviews that she’s done in the past. I really wanted to understand her background, the way that she talks about her story. And what’s interesting is once you listen to so many interviews, you start to pick up on where she gets a lot of energy talking about things. Um, and we wanted to make sure that we encapsulated that in our interview with her. And she’s so natural that when we were on stage, it felt less like an interview and more a conversation anyway.

Michael McDowell: Was there anything that surprised you?

Ayesha Karnik: What was most surprising, and I actually heard this from a lot of people that were there in the auditorium with us, is just how candid she was. I think a lot of times we worry about executives either having prepared responses or having to be very..

Michael McDowell: Totally.

Ayesha Karnik: … kind of buttoned up on the way that they tell their stories. And she wasn’t that at all.

Michael McDowell: No, not at all.

Ayesha Karnik: Sitting in the room with her. Like I said, it felt like a conversation. We were just chatting over coffee or tea for her preference. And I think that just made it all the more special was I didn’t feel like I was talking to the CEO of Chanel. I thought I was talking to Leena, someone who’s had an incredible journey and wanted other people to learn from it.

Michael McDowell: And I think that’s a great place to leave it. So without further ado, here’s Leena Neir.

Ayesha Karnik: Leena, welcome to the GSB.

Leena Nair: Delighted. Delighted to be here and a room full of bright, enthusiastic people. What can be better? And I must say I’m really happy to be here with my family. My husband and both my boys are here. I’m pretty sure they never watched any of the links I sent them. So this is true captive audience. I wanna make it count and I’m very happy to have members of team Chanel here with me. So, great to have the full team Chanel and family support here.

Ayesha Karnik: Well, I know the GSB is happy to have all of you and Leena you here today as well. I think it’s safe to say everyone here knows Chanel, and today we are excited to get to know you.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: And when I think about your journey, the first thing that comes to mind is, well, the word first. You were part of the first batch of girls to graduate from your hometown high school. You are the first woman in your family to pursue a higher education in engineering. The first woman to work the night shift on a factory floor at Hindustan Unilever, and it keeps going. The first and youngest female leader of global HR at Unilever, and the first woman of color to lead a luxury major brand, and specifically the first Indian global CEO of Chanel. And arguably the most exciting, your first View From The Top.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: Leena, it’s so inspirational to see all these firsts, especially knowing the challenges that can come with it. You’ve talked about how you’ve been underestimated in the past, sometimes felt like an outsider. I know many of us here at the GSB have felt that. How have you dealt with that across your career?

Leena Nair: You know, when I look back, I can see the number of people who said, no, it can’t be done. No, it can’t be done. And I remember growing up and I grew up in a small town in India, on the west of India, and I remember everything was a negotiation. Studying, going for engineering was a negotiation because not enough women from the town had ever gone for engineering. And I remember my mom saying, “oh my God, you’re so ambitious. Who’s gonna marry you?” Because that was like the number one concern, how is this girl ever gonna find her husband? And, and she’s so ambitious. So I think it takes a lot of resilience for sure. I often joke about it that I have a thick skin.

I know I met some founders this morning who were saying, it’s so hard, you’re, you’re too pretty, it’s tough. You’re tough. It’s uh, you’re tough, then you’re too tough. As a woman managing this line of liking, respecting, getting admiration, but not too much, being liked, but not too much, being respected, but not too much, is such a difficult one.

So I definitely think it taught me resilience. Gave me a heck of a lot of determination and drive. It taught me to take every opportunity with both hands, to grab it, never take it for granted. You know, when I was going for MBA, I was going to an institute, which was on the other end of India, so in the east. It used to take 48 hours by train to reach from my town called [unknown].

And as far as my family was concerned, that was another planet. So I used to… Going that way, it used to take a lot to be able to go there and do that. So when I reached [unknown], I was like so determined. I’ve got this opportunity to study. I’m gonna give it everything I’ve got. So you never take an opportunity for granted. And a lot of times, I had to continuously remember that it’s a privilege to be first, but I don’t want to be the last, I don’t wanna be the last person doing this job or the last person in running this factory, or the last person running this brand, the last woman doing it. So, lift as you climb has become a huge mantra for me. How do I ensure I make it easier for those who come after me? Because this is not just about me: it’s bigger than that. How do I make it easier always?

Ayesha Karnik: And it’s amazing to hear about that resilience you’re talking about from such an early childhood because you were a little different from the norms from where you grew up.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: Like you said, Leena, you’re from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, which if you’ll let me, a quick shout out to my parents who are also here today and originally from Maharashtra. And so,

Leena Nair: Oh my God, what are the odds? Okay. [Unknown]. Translation being, “your daughter is very bright.”

Ayesha Karnik: But, like you mentioned, you almost didn’t get to go to high school, you went to an engineering degree with 3000 men and 18 women. And like you said, yes, your mom was worried about, you know, you finding a husband, but you also were told you’re so talented, you should have been a boy. So take us back a little bit there. How did you even learn to build that resilience in the first place?

Leena Nair: Ah, you know, those are tricks I still use today. I’m absolute believer in affirmations. I’m constantly affirming. Finding sponsors, finding mentors, finding people, because I didn’t have role models in my immediate family, but reaching out to people.

I remember there was a newspaper article about, uh, you know, the state topper. There was an article about him. I just reached out to him and said, ‘Hey, how did you do this? What are your techniques for studying?’ And he was kind and generous enough to spend time with me and it became something that he invested in as well.

How do you do? Are you using the techniques? Is it working for you? So somewhere, I think deep down I felt that if you are committed and you have deep intent, you will figure out a way because somebody has figured out a way. And if you are humble enough to reach out to them, you will figure out a way. So that’s something that stayed with me.

A huge love for learning. I love learning new things. Right now, of course, learning French is difficult. [French] You know, continuously learning, curiosity, being humble. And always saying, I don’t know. I wanna find out how to do it. That’s helped. But, I was so hungry when I met people who were doing something interesting, I would say, ‘Hey, can you spend some time with me?

Can you have coffee with me? Can you do this with me?’ I was always reaching out to people, anybody who inspired me, all the time. And yes, it got easier. I mean, Kumar has been a huge rock and anchor for me.

You know, one of the stories I must tell you, I was, uh, traveling this 48 hour journey and my father was a big sponsor for my education.

Leena Nair: He said, ‘I will educate you, but I can’t promise that you will have a career because I don’t know if attitudes are gonna change. Mindset is gonna change. I can’t change the world around you, but I’ll educate you.’ And he said, ‘uh, you’re gonna go so far away. I will send you on the promise that you will marry the man I choose for you to marry before you turn 23.’

Okay. And I thought, ‘oh, okay. Whatever, whatever. Let me just sign up for this. Let me just keep going on that train.’ I thought, you know, two years is a long time to come back and negotiate with him, you know, fine. But he didn’t forget, and I was working in Unilever as a management trainee. And I turned 23, on my birthday, He called up and he said, ‘I have someone I want you to meet.’ I said, ‘You must be kidding me. I’m not meeting anybody.’ I’m now this, you know, newly flourishing MBA, I know better. I’m not doing this.

And, uh, he insisted. He said, ‘a promise is a promise. You said you’d go to [unknown] if I, you know, chose the man you’d marry.’ And I met my husband, I met him, and we had coffee and I said, yes in 30 minutes, believe it or not. And we’ve been married for 30 years.

Ayesha Karnik: Amazing.

Leena Nair: So it’s been, it’s been great to have the support system of your family that’s so important to keep going, to have the courage. And I do think that learning to embrace failure was important for me early on. You know, truly not dreading failure. I know it’s easy to say, but genuinely when you fail, take a moment to say, ‘Oh my God, this has been such a huge learning experience.’

You know, when I fail, I’m disappointed, I cry. I cry easily. I go to the loo, I cry. I’m done. It’s all done. It’s over. It’s a fresh day. Get out there, put on my, you know, good face, get out.

But, failures have taught me so much more. And the beauty is once you embrace failure, you can take risks. Because once you’ve learned to embrace failure, you know you can do it you can dust yourself up, get up again. You get more audacious and more risk-taking.

Ayesha Karnik: Well, one of those risks that you took was after getting your engineering degree, you wanted to go against the grain a little bit again and shift into human resources. Can you tell us a little bit about that decision and what made you make that shift?

Leena Nair: Ah, you know, I did engineering, I worked as an engineer. I didn’t enjoy it as much. I’m not allowed to say I’m a lousy engineer because the founders I met this morning who are in the audience, and thank you, StartX founders told me no, no, you can’t say that because that doesn’t make women aspire for as much technical careers.

We are technical, we are fashion, we rock the world, we are everything.

Leena Nair: Yeah. So, um, I didn’t enjoy coding as much and I wanted to do my management studies. I did management studies and somehow I felt that I was more drawn towards things that engaged people that felt, you know, skills to motivate, inspire, galvanize people.

It just felt it came more naturally to me. But to be honest, I wasn’t a hundred percent sure, I joined Unilever as a management trainee, worked ground up, did sales, marketing, factory, worked in supply chain, worked in production, worked across the spectrum of jobs, and I felt that no matter what job I did. My greatest gift was being able to know the people.

I remember I was in this factory very early on in a place called the [unknown] forty acres of factory, and every morning I used to go on my rounds to see what had happened in production the night before. And, of course, the log books were there, but I found that by just listening to the people who’d run the machines, who would be in the, you know, created the glycerine plant or the fine chemicals unit, if I talked to them about what had happened and really deeply listened without any judgment, without putting my own stuff in there, without any arrogance, I would learn so much more than what was written in the log book.

And that became my, you know, I started realizing there was a real draw in this. I enjoyed it. I learned from it. And that’s where I started leaning more and more towards doing human resource jobs. And, uh, the rest is history. I had the chance to lead, uh, human resources for Unilever, which was an incredible experience.

We have 150,000 people in Unilever working in 190 countries. So yes, that was a lot of people to learn how to inspire, galvanize, work with.

Ayesha Karnik: And that humility in your leadership made you such an inspirational global chief human resources officer after 30 years of being at Unilever, and you’ve done it, like you said, on such an unimaginable scale. What advice do you have for us in building company culture that effectively hires and retains top talent at all levels of the organization on that kind of massive, diverse scale?

Leena Nair: To transform a culture, the most important things are role modeling by senior leaders. You cannot drive a behavior that you don’t see exemplified by people at the top, so that’s a big one to invest in. If you wanna transform culture, leaders have to walk the talk. They have to do what they say, say what they do every single day consistently, no exceptions.

You’ve got to incentivize and compensate for the right behaviors. So driving culture starts in many ways from knowing what drives people in the company and having a shared purpose and meaning in what you do. So being at Unilever, one of my purpose always is how do I ignite the spark in others? How do I make others believe they can do anything in life? How can I make others jump five steps more than they ever thought? How can I ignite that sense of self belief? That gets me going. So driving culture also needs people to know why they are in a company, what difference they make, what’s meaningful for them.

But role modeling, big one. You have to role model the behaviors you seek.

Ayesha Karnik: And you ignited that spark in so many people at Unilever, especially the women, like the dean mentioned, under your leadership, Unilever achieved gender parity across every management role globally. What did it take to achieve that?

Leena Nair: A lot of hard work, you know. Because of my background, always being in the minority, always being in the underrepresented set, I knew what the journey was. Now to truly gender balance an organization, you need to support the women, you need to work with the men, and you need to change the culture, and you need to do all three at the same time.

So what I mean by supporting the women is, genuinely supporting women to have ability to express their ambition and feel confidence. I know I feel horrible saying this, but it’s difficult. I told you my story when I was growing up. I was always told girls are not good enough. Girls can’t do this, girls can’t have careers.

So suddenly to imagine that I would turn age 22 and have tremendous ambition and tremendous courage. It’s not easy. So there’s more work to be done to support men and women, particularly, to have ambition. In my job, I used to read hundreds of appraisals and almost without exception, and men, you have to forgive me, the men in the audience, because I’m generalizing.

Almost without exception, the men will write, I’m so ready to be CEO, why don’t they already give it to me? I’m like, so ready. I’m confident, I’ve got all the skills. And the women will write, I think I take, I’ll take a long more time to get ready. I want to excel in my current job. That’s what I want to do. And it’s a little bit about getting used to being able to express your ambition.

So to truly gender balance, you have to support women to feel good about expressing their ambition. You know, you walk into, in Unilever too, no exception, it’s different in Chanel because Gabrielle Chanel was a female founder. You’ve corridors and corridors of portraits of men who’ve led Unilever. So you’re continuously only seeing male role models. Every day you walk into work, you walk through these corridors, you walk through these boardrooms. Not a single woman anywhere, not in any portrait staring at you.

So you’ve gotta support the women to feel confident and to feel ambitious. You’ve gotta support the men because men are in influential power places. Men are gender blind, they think it’s the same! Women, men have the same challenges. What’s the big deal? So you’ve gotta take men on the journey and you’ve got to change the culture. But it happens appointment by appointment, every time you appoint a person, you have to say, show me the short list. It’s got to have equal number of talented men and talented women. And then you make the appointment based on merit.

But the short list has to be balanced, and you’ve gotta do this for every job, every appointment, every promotion. So yes, it takes hard work, it takes relentlessness. But it’s fantastic when it happens.

Ayesha Karnik: And it’s fantastic to us to see that you’ve done that on such a big scale. I think it’s inspirational for everybody else who’s gonna be leading organizations. Now, Leena, after 30 years, Unilever is kind of like your family.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: You’re comfortable, you’re successful, you could have stayed there for the rest of your career. But then you get a call from Chanel. Bring us into that moment.

Leena Nair: Oh my God.

Ayesha Karnik: What was going on in your mind and how did you know? How did you know that was going —

Leena Nair: Here I am, totally in love with Unilever. Thirty years, family, friends, the CEO of Unilever, and the board has spoken to me that I’m gonna be one of the three candidates they’re gonna invest in to be the next CEO of Unilever.

Life is good. It’s party time, it’s all going according to script. And then Chanel called. I was so gobsmacked. I was so shocked. Like I was like, and it was a direct call and I was stunned. Why me? Why me? This isn’t happening? I came out and I told my husband, ‘ Chanel has called, but I’m not gonna even consider it, are they crazy? I love Unilever. I’m too loyal. I’m not leaving.’ And he said, ‘Are you mad? Go back and take the call!’ I was like, ‘No, no, no. I’m not doing it.’ And genuinely it took me nine months to say yes. It was almost as much time to have a baby because I just couldn’t say goodbye to Unilever. I felt such a sense of loyalty.

At one point, I was sobbing so much at all my [unknown] I had like tissue boxes next to me, and again, my husband was like, ‘Honey, it’s not a divorce. You’re just joining another company, like thousands of people do it every day. Get a grip!’ You know? But it, it was so compelling, how can I not join Chanel? I mean, the most iconic brand. It is the most followed brand on all western media platforms put together, imagine the influence and impact. By legendary founder Gabrielle Chanel a hundred years ago created trousers cross-body bags so that women could ride horses, ride bikes. I mean, it was just so, the variety of the job. One morning it’s fashion and we have ten collections a year, it’s relentless and it goes like this, the next day, I mean, we are the world’s largest fragrance maker. We are the second largest makeup maker in the world. We, we make watches, we make jewelry. Every day is a new thing. It was like running so many different companies within [unknown] one. And the values of our house: integrity, independence, audacity, so, so compelling.

And luxury sector. Luxury sector’s so dynamic, it’s $370 billion today, and personal goods luxury market has tripled in the last 20 years. So it’s an exciting sector. Gen Z engages with the sector. 30% of luxury consumers by 2030 are Gen Z. So, exciting sector, beautiful brand. It was hard to say no. So that was the moment.

But yeah, I’m so glad, I’ve completely fallen in love with Chanel. I’m like, everybody else in Chanel. We first spend the first three minutes of every meeting admiring each other’s clothes. Oh, which collection? Oh, Spring/Summer 2024. Oh, really? And the shoes? No, they’re, they’re from the Fall/Winter 2023. Okay, that’s great.

We, we have such fun moment because totally into Chanel. It’s a dream job. It’s everything I hoped for and more, it’s everything I dreamt of and more. I love Unilever, but that’s the past now. It’s, I love you, Unilever, but I’m all Chanel now. Heart, mind, body, soul, all Chanel. Don’t tell anybody in Unilever. I love them too. Yeah.

Ayesha Karnik: Now I’m curious, because you may not have been the obvious choice for this role.

Leena Nair: Oh gosh. You’re never the obvious choice anyway. I’m always too young, woman, not done this, not done that.

Ayesha Karnik: But here you are making a quadruple leap.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: From this massive consumer goods company to a bespoke luxury brand. From public to private company, from Dutch to French culture, and from looking after people to looking after, well, everything.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: And a lot of us came here to business school to make those big career shifts. So how did you successfully navigate that transition?

Leena Nair: You’re right, a quadruple transition means you’re either very brave or very foolish

Ayesha Karnik: Or both.

Leena Nair: You know, it’s, when I look back, the big, the toughest transition actually was from FMCG to luxury. Because for 30 years it was mass markets. You make a billion [unknown] a day, you are available everywhere. You overcommunicate. You are on every billboard. You are 400 brands. It’s mass, mass, mass. And luxury is completely contrasting. You make very little. You make like five pink bags. It’s like a work of art. You don’t know an artist who makes 500 paintings at the same time.

This is like a work of art. You make those five bags. And you let people see them, discover them, yearn for them, desire them, not find it in New York. Go looking for them in Paris, not find them in Paris, but dream about them. It’s a completely different mindset. It’s precious, it’s rare, it’s unique. Everything is made by hand. It takes 180 steps to make a bag. It’s five years and working on dummy bags before you can work on a classic iconic Chanel bag. So it’s completely different. So I had to unlearn everything and relearn everything, and it’s scary and it’s very humbling because the words I used for the first six months was always, ‘Help me understand why we do it this way.’’

It was my most common go to phrase. Because I really didn’t understand why do you do it this way? Because I’d seen another reality. And you know, the first week, so I line up the first week and I have the schedule. It says day one, surprise, day two, surprise, and the whole week is surprise. I’m coming from a completely structured company where, you know, data analytics would’ve told me what I need to do in first week.

You know? And I’m sitting here. The first day I went to Gabrielle Chanel’s apartment where she designed and over a period of the whole day, people from our patrimony, uh, from our patrimony — heritage division — told me stories, told me stories, didn’t get me to read presentations, told me stories about Gabrielle Chanel, how she was a radical innovator, how she broke norms, and how she did all this when women didn’t have the vote.

So that was day one. Day two, I went to our, uh, heritage, our [unknown], which is 500,000 square feet of space that had 150,000 artifacts, objects, signature pieces from every collection we’ve designed, statement pieces, and I was told the story of all these objects, artifacts. Can you imagine? I’m like, ‘Oh God, this is a different world.’

I’m like, Okay, I’m, and then I traveled, traveled, traveled. I met. All… I met unique people I’d never met before. [Unknown,] milliners, people who make hats, people who do embroidery, because everything is made by hand. It takes hours and hours to make a dress. 200 hours, 300 hours, six people working together, you know, beautiful pleated skirts you see on the ramp.

It’s two people pushing it back and forth in a mold for seven or eight hours before the skirt gets ready. It’s just incredible and that helped me change my pace, build patience, think differently.

To be honest, the fundamentals of business are transferable. Leadership skills are transferable. Uh, I’d learned so much at Unilever, how a business makes money, how you drive growth, how you think about profitability, how you keep your commercial financial indicators in mind, how you work across cultures. All of that is transferable. Scale, complexity, international mindset, all of that is transferable. So I relied on my strengths, but I had to keep huge amount of humility to, to really understand before I jumped into, say, here’s what I want to do differently. So I had to really understand, seek to understand before you seek to change was a big philosophy those few months. And, uh, yes, so it was worth, worth the pivoting, worth the transition.

Ayesha Karnik: Oh, absolutely. And it’s so awesome to hear just all the, the work you went through to understand the factories, the designers, the craftsmanship that went into Chanel and Leena, I’m curious, ‘cause you always talk about how Leena from [unknown] could never have imagined the world of Chanel. You spent most of your career at a company that commoditized retail, like you said, mass, mass, mass, and championed inclusion. How have those experiences influenced your leadership now at a company that traditionally is admired for its exclusivity?

Leena Nair: You know, um, my principles of leadership that ground me have still very much been rooted in my perspective as I was growing up and my perspective of listening to so many mentors along the way. We, you know, spoken about her, Indra is a mentor. Nigel Higgins is a mentor, so many mentors. It’s, so there three or four things I believe in. One is I am very determined to be a holistic leader who thinks for the long term. And that was true in Unilever, that’s true in Chanel, which is I look at all levers of business. You know, brand. Are we building our brand clients? Are our clients truly happy? Are people, are people truly happy to work at Chanel? Sustainability. Are we doing what’s right for the planet? Planet nature, business has to thrive together.

That’s one of my fundamental beliefs. And are we then having the financial results that matter? So thinking holistically across all aspects. I mean, the beauty about Chanel is we pay only 20% of our annual bonus and financial results. 80% is on how you build the brand, how you make the world a better place, how you look after people in the business. So it was fantastic. It was a true marriage of minds, me and Chanel. So holistic, that’s not changed.

The second hallmark of my leadership, which I hope that’s what people say, is that I truly believe in benevolence, in kindness, in compassion, in empathy. I mean, you’ve gotta do tough things in business, but doing it compassionately is very important to me, doing it properly, doing it keeping the person in mind. I mean, it’s, I’m very particular, if I’m in a meeting, I want to listen to every voice because I truly believe in collective intelligence. I believe everyone’s voice matters. Not just the ones who speak loudly. You’ve gotta listen to every voice. Diverse perspectives matter to me.

It’s also, I love knowing people. I know everybody’s names and faces. 37,000. I’m not done yet. I’m probably at 20,000. But my team will, will tell you, I know everyone’s names and faces. If you’ve told me a story of your life. I will know it. I will never, ever forget it. I will respect what you bring, your values, your beliefs. So that’s very important for me. And we don’t hear this enough in business, I mean, people don’t care for compassionate, empathetic leaders. We don’t see enough role models like that. So for me, it really matters that I set a brand of leadership that’s about compassion, empathy, do the tough things, do it decisively, but do it with compassion. Do it keeping the human being at the end of it, who’s impacted by your decisions, in mind.

So those principles haven’t changed. And the third thing is always being future fit, listening. Looking outside, I’m very curious. I’m always taking my team to Seattle, Silicon Valley, talking to different companies. Like I said, I had breakfast this morning talking to some amazing female founders from StartX. I’m always curious. I wanna learn, I wanna learn, I wanna be future fit, I wanna be curious. So those things haven’t changed and they have, you know, and they will continue.

Ayesha Karnik: Which is amazing to hear and thinking about looking to the future. There’s a new generation of consumers with slightly different preferences. There’s a lot more value in individualism, personal expression. Customers, like you said, are looking to sustainability. They want ethically sourced products. How is Chanel adapting its strategy and maybe even its product line to engage these new consumers?

Leena Nair: As I said, Gen Z is 30% of luxury consumers. Not right now, but going to be by 2030. But right now itself, it’s one of the fastest growing trajectories. And they buy luxury because they buy with the built they buy because they know it lasts. I want you to buy a Chanel product and I want you to keep it and cherish it. Keep that bag forever for generations. Hand it over to your daughter, daughter-in-laws, et cetera. It’s the memories that count. So, they buy with a buy less mindset. They buy with a buy to invest mindset. So for me, sustainability is a non-negotiable in luxury. You make less, you allow it to restore for longer. You keep the lifecycle for long. And that’s generally principle of sustainability. But we have set what we call a Chanel sustainability ambition in place. We are one of the few luxury brands. I think they’re among two luxury brands that has set a net zero 2040 commitment. So we are really serious about reducing our carbon emissions.

We invest in circularity, so we are in restoration of our products for long. We create a lot of upcycled products. All our staff uniforms are made from upcycled Chanel products. We believe in dignity and opportunity for everybody working in our value chain. We, and we are doing a lot to promote the autonomy of women and girls everywhere.

So we are taking sustainability very seriously. We are accelerating the journey. We want to be a role model in the luxury sector. We want everyone to look at Chanel and say, whoa, they’re the people who’ve got sustainability right and are doing it in an exemplary way.

Ayesha Karnik: And part of what you just talked about is lifting women from their positions and giving them more opportunity. Can you tell us more about the work the foundation’s doing?

Leena Nair: Yeah. Chanel Foundation is one of the world’s largest philanthropic organization working to support women and girls to shape their own destiny. I mean, hardly anyone knows about it. Everyone knows the brand. Nobody knows about the philanthropic organization that sits within Chanel.

We do almost 200 or 300 projects, about 237 to be exact, across 57 countries where we do work to support women at grassroots level for safety, for social and economic autonomy, and for women fighting climate change and climate resilience. For example, in Afghanistan, we support Radio [unknown,] which is a channel where women, girls who don’t go to school, so girls between 11 to 17 get to listen to school lessons. So we do that.

I believe business has resources, has power, has influence. We’ve got to make a difference to the world. In India, for example, we have the Green Brigade, which is thousands of women who are saving and restoring mangroves because that provides the first shield against natural soil erosion. So women at the front end of climate resilience. So through our work on philanthropy, we support women who are, uh, fighting climate change across the world. So it’s, it’s, I truly believe when women thrives, the world thrives. So we’ve gotta do more. And all the men in the audience, you are important too, please, Chanel cares about you as well, but it’s uh, when you know women thrive, the world thrives. How do we make it a more balanced world? It’s just that we need so many more women in leadership. Climate leadership, hardly any women. Business leadership? That number has stayed at 7, 8, 9, 10% of fortune CEOs of women at that number has stayed like that for two decades.

I’m in my fifties now, girls, come on, run. We need more. So it’s uh, you know, we need more. We need to support.

Ayesha Karnik: And it’s so heartwarming for me to hear all these insights from Chanel. I’m sure most of us didn’t even know about the work the foundation’s doing. And I think so much of Chanel’s allure is not knowing the company behind closed doors.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: But it sounds like that’s starting to shift a little bit. Leena, how are you trying to open that door into Chanel, if at all?

Leena Nair: We are an iconic brand, but we are not a loud company. We don’t overcommunicate. We don’t, I mean, this is one of the rare speaking sessions I’m doing. Like, as my team will tell you, we get about 2000 speaking sessions. I probably say yes to four or five. So it’s, we are not a loud company. We don’t overcommunicate. But as we’ve grown larger, you know, we are a $20 billion company. We, it’s important we are more transparent about who we are and what we stand for. And also we believe that when we do things, we do them well.

We are very high on integrity. We don’t communicate a thing unless we are a hundred percent sure we’re doing it well, we’re doing it properly, we’re not, you know, overcommunicating or saying something that’s not true. We are super, super careful about that. But we feel that some of the good things we do could inspire others and some of the good things others do could inspire us. So we are more open in sharing what we do well and what the challenges we are facing, but we’ll never be all over the place. We’ll still have our mystique and our integrity. I still want you to keep dreaming when you think of Chanel.

Ayesha Karnik: Well, first of all, we’re honored that we we’re one of your four or five that you said yes to.

Leena Nair: Absolutely. Ayesha. Look at you!

Ayesha Karnik: Well, let’s look at you, Leena. But it’s amazing that you’re letting us in. So, Leena, if you achieved your vision, where is Chanel in 10 years?

Leena Nair: Ah. I’d love Chanel to continue to be a beacon of inspiration for the next hundred years, genuinely today, a hundred years on from when Gabrielle Chanel did all the things for freedom of movement for women.

I mean, it seems simple, but to liberate women from car sets and it seems simple, and to use jersey material for women, which is never used. Things like that, to take the black dress, which is only used for funerals and make it easy for anyone to wear it anywhere, not [unknown] today for anything good, bad, or ugly.

And to do that a hundred years ago, when women didn’t have the vote, nobody had equality of any sense. And today we stand and we thank her for doing that. I want a hundred years from now, for men and women to say, wow, those people in Chanel in 2024 really knew what they were doing because they’ve changed our lives today. So I want us to be a beacon of inspiration for the next hundred years. And I know we’ll do that if we have a positive impact in the world. And we are constantly looking at what’s next and staying ahead of it. And if we continue to invest in human beings, human creation, human relations, those human skills that we have, which increasingly in a world of AI people forget, but this human, deeply human savoir faire, craftsmanship, uniquely human things, if we keep doing that, we will be a beacon of inspiration a hundred years from now. That’s my vision for Chanel.

Ayesha Karnik: And we can’t wait to see that vision come true. Leena, I have one more question for you before we open up for audience Q&A. It’s one they’re asking all of our speakers this year.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Ayesha Karnik: So our theme is leaving your mark.

Leena Nair: Oh!

Ayesha Karnik: I know, thank you.

Leena Nair: Yeah.

Ayesha Karnik: So, Leena —

Leena Nair: Big words!

Ayesha Karnik: So Leena, how would you like to be remembered?

Leena Nair: Aha. Uh, there are a couple of things here. One, one thing I truly believe in is people never remember what you said, what you did, even if I, you’re not gonna remember anything I said, maybe three days later, five days later, it’s all gonna go off. But people remember how you made them feel. That’s something that’s always in my mind. I always think about that. What do I want people to feel? What do I want people to take away in terms of how they felt?

So that’s one thought in my mind. And the other is my 11-year-old self cycling through the dusty lanes. I was largely barefoot a lot of times, believe me. And I would like my 11-year-old self to be proud of the leader I’ve become. I’d like that 11-year-old to know that I have truly tried to make a difference in everything I’ve done, and I’ve tried very hard to break every norm that exists, and I’ve used every little influence, power I have to uplift others to elevate others, to inspire others, and make it easier for them, and I hope she is proud of who I’ve become.

Ayesha Karnik: Wow, just heartwarming. We will be back after this.

Audience: Thanks so much for sharing all these, uh, amazing insights with us. So you, you’re the first of many positions, right? And you spoke about embracing failure. So how do you balance the need to embrace failure with the pressure of succeeding as the first in some of these positions?

Leena Nair: Yeah, it’s such a great question. I feel it all the time when I fail, I feel like I’ve let down an entire race. I’ve let down all women everywhere. Everywhere. I’ve let down all Indians. It is a pressure I carry and I feel for sure, for sure, I carry and feel that pressure. You know, your success gets amplified and your failures get amplified and how.

The one, one thing. You know, I’ve put little, little practices always to help me get through those moments. One of the things I do a lot as I journal. I definitely write three things that make me grateful every single night, I’ve tried to inspire my boys to do it, haven’t succeeded. And during the teenage years they said, we are not grateful for anything in our lives, so what are we gonna write?

So, you know, they go through those phases. So it was, uh, the three things that helps. I, when, when I was taking Chanel… You do have some self-doubt. Oh God, the whole world is saying, saying, ‘She’s not the obvious choice. Why are they bringing her? She doesn’t understand luxury. She doesn’t understand fashion. You know, she’s, uh, she’s from India. Like, God, what are they thinking? She’s not even French. She can barely speak French.’

So you hear these voices. So another thing I do is I journal a lot. Like I, I wrote down an essay saying why I am the right person, at the right time, in the right context to lead Chanel, and here are the 10 reasons why.

So I do things like that to help me cope with the pressure, but community, community, talking to my family, building a sisterhood, uh, cheering others, getting others to cheer for me, listening to mentors who give you perspective. I have a mentor. I have breakfast every six months with Nigel Higgins, and he’s like.

You know you haven’t failed. Something you tried failed. This doesn’t make you a failure. Come on, look at it differently. So it’s, it’s nice to do that. Have different, go for a long walk. Have a good cry. It always works. Get it over with, then you can get onto the next thing. Yeah. Talking to my husband, going for long walks, all of that. But you feel the pressure. I’m not saying you don’t, you do feel the pressure. I would be not honest if I told it’s all very easy, you walk in. No. You feel the pressure. You feel the pressure of having to succeed, not for you, but for many others.

Audience: Hi, thank you so much for being here today.

Leena Nair: Delighted to be here.

Audience: My name is Dora. Thanks for being here. Um, I’m Dora. I’m an MBA1. Um, and I’m curious, so currently the luxury market as a whole has been experiencing a softening.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Audience: So Dior, Louis Vuitton, Gucci have all had some slight dips in their sales while Chanel has been very successful. I’m curious amid the current conditions of the luxury market, what Chanel is doing to differentiate itself and maintain its success. Thank you.

Leena Nair: In luxury, you never look at competition. You’re making a work of art. It’s not comparable. You want people to dream and yearn for it, but to your question, yes, market forces are challenging for many sectors, including luxury. But you know, when one of the beauty of being independent and private is that I can keep such a long-term mindset. I’m off the treadmill of every quarter having to show results, and I was in Unilever, I’ve seen that, squeezed, you’ve gotta find the answers every quarter some investors gonna ask you a question. It’s beautiful being in a long-term company where you’re thinking a hundred years, there are not that many CEOs that can say we are thinking a hundred years out.

You know, they have gotta think next quarter and the quarter after. So to me, yes, there’ll be fluctuations, there’ll be some ebbs and flows. But if you stay focused on the long term, you stay focused on the brand, building the strength of the brand, the desirability of the brand, you stay focused on creating a fantastic luxury experience for your clients.

You know, we don’t do e-commerce. This is the 21st century. We don’t do e-commerce. We only for fashion and watches and fine jewelry, you have to go to our stores and spend a moment with our fashion advisor to learn the story of what you’re buying and why you would like to buy. So if you focus on brand, clients, people, and keeping the long-term perspective, the results will follow.

We’ve been here a hundred years, we’ve seen more downturns than I can count. We’ve seen recessions, we’ve seen many things, but staying focused on doing the right things for the long-term make a difference.

Audience: Hi, uh, good afternoon. I’m David, I’m from, uh, uh, China, uh, and grew up in a household where my mom loves Chanel, and I’ve seen all those —

Leena Nair: Oh my God, she has great taste. She has fantastic taste.

Audience: Thank you. Those black and white iconic boxes everywhere. Um, you know, China, as, as we know.

Leena Nair: We must take a picture and you must tell her that I appreciate her and admire her long distance.

Audience: Absolutely.

Leena Nair: I love all of my clients.

Audience: I’ll let her know. She’ll be so excited, um, so, so, so China has been such a growth engine

Leena Nair: Yes.

Audience: In the past 20 years for a lot of the luxury houses. Uh,

Leena Nair: Yes.

Audience: including Chanel, uh, mostly fueled by, uh, consumers like my mom, who’s very avid, uh, in luxury. Uh, and as you know, in recent years, um, macro economy has slowed a little bit.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Audience: Uh, in that part of the world. Uh, it has been challenging for a lot of luxury brands.

Leena Nair: Yes.

Audience: So how do you think about, uh, perhaps the future, uh, of the Chinese luxury consumers, uh, since such a large market and perhaps what are the, uh, for the next 20 years, what are the next, uh, super growth market for Chanel?

Leena Nair: Yes. You know, China is a very, very good market for luxury for now and for the future because China’s sophistication and understanding of luxury is very good. So I’m a believer in China. Yes, there’ll be some short term ebbs and flows, but long term, it’s still a growth market for luxury. I mean, when China grew, China grows at 5% and we are all disappointed.

I mean, many markets, I mean, I, I live in Europe most of the time. Many markets would be lucky if they saw some of that growth. So I continue to be, be a believer in China. We are not. Slowing down on any of our investments in China, we are opening stores across the country. We continue to invest in a great range for China.

We are continuing to invest in hiring the right people, building leadership for China. So I’m a long-term believer. So you have to keep a long-term perspective. Yes. 12 months, 18 months, 24 months, three years. Who knows? Nobody can really read how quickly a market comes back or doesn’t. But staying invested in the long term. I’m a believer in China. I do think in the next few years, India will be a market to contend with, for sure. Luxury in India is growing up. Luxury believes in heritage. Craftsman. Uh, India believes in luxury, craftsmanship, heritage, so that’s gonna be promising. Mexico’s coming up, Southeast, Asian markets are coming up. So yeah, there are a lot more markets which are waking up to luxury. Yeah. We are in 141 markets, but there are a lot more I’d love to go to.

Audience: Hi. Hi, Leena. Um, I’m here. I’m Soon Yi, I’m MBA1. Thank you so much for being here. You’re an incredible role model and I love your motto lift as you climb. Um, I was wondering if you can share a story about a mentor that had a major impact on you, and if you can also give us some advice on how to help others as we climb.

Leena Nair: Oh my God, I’ve had so many mentors. You know, I was always reaching out to people. When I was doing my job at Unilever, if I had any project or initiative to lead, you know, I would create the obvious list of people you need to meet because you’ve gotta make a project successful. But then I’d draw a list of 10 or 20 people who inspired me.

And I would say, ‘Hey, will you talk to me about this project?’ Just because I wanted to get to know them. So I’m a huge believer in having this mentoring support. I remember when Chanel called and I was like, no, I don’t wanna go. I love Unilever. No, I’m not going to take this. I called Indra and I told her that the first question I had when Chanel called was, why me?

Why is Chanel looking at me? And she was so cross, she said, never say that again. What is this? Why me? They’re approaching you. You didn’t go looking for them. You didn’t write a resume and say — Have the confidence: If they’ve come looking for you, it’s because they see stuff in you that’s right and ready for them.

So that was an important wake-up moment, you know, instead of underplaying what I have, being conscious of the strengths that I bring, that others could see it and I couldn’t see it myself. So many stories like that, Paul Polman, who’s CEO of Unilever, and huge influence on me to always think about the planet and nature when you think about business, you can’t do business and have a dying planet. You’ve got to find a way to integrate that thinking into everything you do.

So, yes. And uh, today morning I was talking to the founders from StartX and they were really getting me to question, are we doing enough to support female founders? How hard it is for them to raise money. So yeah, it’ll have an influence on me. So a new fresh insight for today,

Ayesha Karnik: And this will be our last question.

Leena Nair: Oh no, I’m sorry.

Ayesha Karnik: Sorry, Leena.

Leena Nair: Go for it.

Audience: Hi, my name is Maria. I’m an MBA1. Thank you for sharing your story with us today. Um, as you mentioned, luxury brands have chosen not to often adopt e-commerce and other technology. How do you see Chanel adopting recent changes in AI and robotics and do you see that impacting the broader luxury landscape?

Leena Nair: See, AI is everywhere. And it’s gonna be transformative in our world. So luxury has to engage with it. Chanel has to engage with it, as all others. In fact, I brought, uh, we came as a team, our leadership team and I, we, we traveled to Seattle in May. We met a whole lot of people. We’ve gone and visited Microsoft, Google.

Many of the startups in this area spent time with ChatGPT, et cetera, because we wanna learn, we wanna understand how it impacts us. I do think that, uh, the number one thing in my mind is to keep the relentless focus on human creation. I don’t want that ever to go. So ensuring that AI supports human creators and creation rather than take away what they bring so skillfully and masterfully is very much core to who we are at Chanel.

We also high on ethics and integrity, so we want to do it the right way. And it was funny, we were at Microsoft and we’re playing around with ChatGPT on the premises and we like, show us a picture of a senior leadership team from Chanel visiting Microsoft. It was all men in suits. This is Chanel! Yes, 76% of my organization is women. 96% of my clients are women. Female CEO. It was a hundred percent male team, not even in fashionable clothes. Like, come on, this is what you gotta offer, this is what you gotta offer ChatGPT, like come on. So, it’s so important that we keep the ethics and integrity of what we’re doing with AI, and I constantly talk to all my friends in tech, all the CEOs that you know, saying, come on guys, you’ve gotta make sure that you’re integrating a humanistic way of thinking in AI.

But like all others, we are, um, getting our organization AI ready, which means doing all the hard work, like getting infrastructure systems, data, data governance, classification, get your data ready for AI. You can’t have any AI if you don’t have all those fundamentals in place. Like all others, we are doing a lot of experiments. What I call a thousand flowers are blooming. We are trying little things for productivity, chatbots on chanel.com. You know, we are trying a lot of things like all others. For productivity and, uh, I’m keeping focused on what truly needs to be scaled, while keeping relentless focus on human creators being motivated and doing their best things, their best work, and their best… freedom of creation is a very important value for us, giving our creators the freedom to do that.

Ayesha Karnik: Leena, I know you wanna answer more questions, but we’re gonna do our last tradition here for View From The Top, our rapid fire.

Leena Nair: Oh my God.

Ayesha Karnik: Don’t worry, it won’t be scary.

Leena Nair: Do you get bribed to ask difficult questions? How does this go?

Ayesha Karnik: Um, I’m just gonna say five statements or quick questions, and you’re gonna tell me the first that comes to your mind, okay?

Leena Nair: Okay.

Ayesha Karnik: Favorite city in India.

Leena Nair: Ah, Mumbai. Oh, it’s this rocking city.

Ayesha Karnik: Same, I know. Um, your fashion icon,

Leena Nair: You know, Gabrielle Chanel. Of course, I’d be disappointed if I didn’t say that, like she’s in my heart. I channel her all the time. But yeah, Margot Robbie, who’s now our face for Number Five and Aussies in the audience, it’s Margot Robbie and Jacob [unknown] just for you. It’s Margot Robbie in her full power. I think she’s inspiring at the moment, um, empowered woman rocking the world. Kickass.

Ayesha Karnik: Yeah, I definitely agree with the kickass there. Um, the first Chanel item you ever owned?

Leena Nair: A jumbo 2.55 bag. I was so excited to buy it and I kind of kept it in my cupboard for days refusing to use it. I loved it, loved it. It was a, it was a labor of love to dream about it and to buy it, and it still is one of my favorite possessions.

Ayesha Karnik: Do you still have it?

Leena Nair: Yes, I have it. I have it.

Ayesha Karnik: Amazing. That doesn’t count as one of your five questions

Leena Nair: And I’m in Chanel.

Ayesha Karnik: The first word that comes to mind when you think of Chanel?

Leena Nair: Surprise, awe, and wonder. I want Chanel to always surprise you. I want you to walk out of anything to do with Chanel, a product, an event, an interaction, feeling that sense of awe and wonder.

Ayesha Karnik: Afternoon tea in London or brunch champagne in Paris?

Leena Nair: That’s a tough one, but I think brunch champagne in uh, Paris wins. It’s so much butter, cream, and you know, I’ve learned about 50 adjectives in while my French classes are still progressing and it’s a great opportunity to practice them [unknown]. You know? And say all those things [unknown] I like, I know about 50. I use them in different combinations and they all positive and they all mean ‘it rocks!’ So, yeah.

Ayesha Karnik: Well, Leena, this has been [unknown] I don’t know if that’s —

Leena Nair: It’s gotta be more than [unknown]! It’s gotta be [unknown]!

Ayesha Karnik: Yes

Leena Nair: It’s like big words. No, I’m kidding.

Ayesha Karnik: Amazing. Well, Leena, thank you so much. We are so happy that we were able to have you here today.

Leena Nair: I’m so delighted again to be here, thanks…

Michael McDowell: Surprise, awe, and wonder.

Ayesha Karnik: All those words describe, not just Chanel, but honestly Leena as well.

Michael McDowell: Definitely.

Ayesha Karnik: as you all would’ve heard. For me, what’s just incredible and where I get the wonder and awe and surprise from is just how humble she is from everything that she’s done, the position she’s in, you don’t even feel that coming from the way that she’s talking about her experience and who she is. I think my awe is just, who she is on a personal level, and I, I love that.

Michael McDowell: One moment that really stuck out for me was when she was reflecting on the conversation she had with her mentor when she first got the call about the job at Chanel. ‘Why me?’

Ayesha Karnik: Mm-hmm.

Michael McDowell: Um, she was wondering, and her mentor said, ‘Never say that again.’ Uh, any thoughts on that?

Ayesha Karnik: I think it’s one of the, the truest statements that her mentor could have said to Leena, and I’m so thankful she shared it with all of us. We talk about so much at the GSB imposter syndrome, and do we really belong here where we are? And it’s just such a great reminder to hear you’re really the biggest barrier to yourself getting anywhere. And the minute you ask, why me? You’re immediately taking yourself out of the run. I think it’s so simple and easy to remember, harder to to put into practice.

Michael McDowell: Very true.

Ayesha Karnik: But I think it’s something everyone needs to hear and everyone should really, really work on embodying and embracing.

Michael McDowell: And it has a special texture when the global CEO of Chanel says it, right?;

Ayesha Karnik: Exactly. It almost just makes those kind of goals and dreams feel a little more attainable for people like us, where we, we can’t even imagine what it’s like to, to lead on, on that global level. And I think it just inspires a little bit of, of hope, a spark of excitement for, for us looking to do that same thing.

Michael McDowell: That’s right. Why me? Why not?

Ayesha Karnik: Exactly. Why not?

Michael McDowell: So early on in the conversation, there was a special moment between Leena and some people in the audience. Can you give us some context?

Ayesha Karnik: Absolutely, I might be a little biased, but it might’ve been my favorite moment of the whole interview. So my parents were actually in town. They live in Dallas, but they were up here just to watch me be able to, to do this event. And obviously they were so excited to see Leena in person and it just so happens, I actually didn’t even realize this before we were starting to prepare for, for our interviews that Leena is from the same state and part of India that my whole family is from.

Michael McDowell: Wow.

Ayesha Karnik: And because of that, she can actually speak the same native language that both me and my parents speak, not necessarily Hindi, the national language, which we can, but our regional language, so even more specific.

Michael McDowell: What language is that?

Ayesha Karnik: It’s Marathi. And we were on stage and you know, I was asking about her background, happened to mention my parents were from the same area and she did something that I honestly could never have thought she would have. But she spoke to them, from stage, in our native language and I think that, to me, is just such, it’s such a representation of what a people’s person she is, down to earth, that she was willing to, to step away from our kind of, you know, formal interview to make such a personal connection with my parents.

Michael McDowell: Yeah. Yeah.

Ayesha Karnik: And oh, you should have seen my parents’ face. They were just giddy for the rest of the interview. It was the sweetest moment.

Michael McDowell: From French to Marathi in one conversation.

Ayesha Karnik: We’ve covered it all.

Michael McDowell: If you had the opportunity to ask her one more question, what would that be?

Ayesha Karnik: I would wanna know what she misses from kind of her lifestyle back in the small town of India and growing up away from the jewelry and the riches of Chanel, the massive scale of Unilever, there’s something that we all carry with us from our childhood and from where we grew up, and I’d wanna know what she misses and what she kind of always wants to go back to a little bit.

Michael McDowell: Maybe those bike rides.

Ayesha Karnik: Probably those bike rides.

You’ve been listening to View From The Top: The Podcast, a production of Stanford Graduate School of Business.

This interview was conducted by me, Ayesha Karnik, of the MBA Class of 2025. Michael McDowell is our managing producer and Michael Reilly edited and mixed this episode.

Special thanks to Liz Walker.

You can find more episodes of View From The Top on our website, gsb.stanford.edu/business-podcasts. Don’t forget to rate and subscribe, and follow us on social media @StanfordGSB.