LEENA NAIR, who become the new CEO of French fashion house Chanel in January, has joined a long list of Indian-origin corporate executives steering global brands.
“I am humbled and honoured to be appointed the global chief executive officer of Chanel, an iconic and admired company,” she wrote on social media.
“I am so inspired by what Chanel stands for. It is a company that believes in the freedom of creation, in cultivating human potential and in acting to have a positive impact in the world.”
Nair has the reputation of being the first female, first Asian and youngest-ever chief human resource officer at Unilever, the company she joined as a management trainee nearly 30 years ago and rose through the ranks.
According to the British Indian, building a gender-balanced workplace has been one of her priorities and she strove to promote diversity and inclusion.
Born in 1969 in Kolhapur, a city in Maharashtra, India, Nair graduated in electronics and telecommunication at Walchand College of Engineering in nearby Sangli.
She obtained her master’s degree in business management with a gold medal from the noted institute XLRI, before joining Hindustan Unilever, the Indian arm of the British consumer goods giant Unilever, in 1992, which back then was a male-dominated workforce.
‘It was 3,000 boys and 18 girls in engineering college and the four years there toughened me up, made me thick skinned and I learnt how to claw my way through a largely male-dominated space’, she told the Khaleej Times.
Fifteen years later, she became the first woman to be appointed to the company’s south Asia leadership team, where she led the talent and organisation strategy.
“I was the first woman to do sales at HUL, the first to visit a factory. I feel I have been privileged to receive opportunities to break several taboos and glass ceilings.”
When she left Unilever, women represented almost 47 per cent of the company’s management. “We implemented several systematic (changes), transforming the cultural framework,” she adds.
An advocate of compassionate leadership and dreaming big, Nair was elevated as the chief HR officer and in 2016 became a member of the Unilever leadership executive, where she was responsible for the company’s human capital needs.
Nair speaks four languages – English, Hindi, Marathi and Malayalam and said she feels her purpose is to “ignite the human spark to build a better business and a better world”.
Being “open to feedback” and constant learning has helped her in her time at Unilever, which has operations in 190 countries.
“I have always been open to feedback. Well, perhaps not from the start! After taking a few knocks along the way, I realised that I needed to hear feedback so that I didn’t continue to make the same mistakes. Being open to feedback and learning helps you take risks and be flexible,” she told Learnbly last year.
Under her watch, Unilever achieved gender parity across global management, according to a Harper’s Bazaar profile published in 2021, which also highlighted her commitment to pay the living wage across the supply chain.
As a successful professional, she always underlines learning. One of her key appointments at Unilever was a chief learning officer, a position created to push the importance of learning. According to her, the ability to learn lifelong is the single biggest differentiating factor for successful professionals and businesses.
“The world is pivoting so fast that if you’re not willing to learn, unlearn, relearn and reinvent yourself all the time, then you’re history,” Nair tells Learnerbly in an interview.
Having overseen some 150,000 people at Unilever, she suggests retention of talent is as much important as its acquisition and willingness to hear, and active conversation is key to achieve it.
Nair, who has always dreamt big, says it is important to start one’s career with an aspiration of what one wants to do, the impact one will have, and the legacy one will leave.
She believes that HR needs to lay the road for the business, not merely fill the cracks after the business has gone ahead.
Nair was previously a non-executive board member at British telecom company BT and a steering committee member of the World Economic Forum.
She has said it is important to “adapt to every culture”.
In November 2008, Nair witnessed terrorism from close quarters as she was caught up in Mumbai’s Taj Mahal hotel when it came under attack from armed militants.
“When terrorists attacked the Taj in Mumbai, I was stuck in the hotel with the Unilever senior team and my spouse. It was the hardest, most difficult night I have ever been through. Debris were constantly falling, and you could hear gunshots and screams throughout the night. You are hiding in a corner of the room, desperately hoping that you’re not found…”
But she and her team escaped through a window, helped by a rescue team. Nair, who has broken several glass ceilings in her career, featured in Fortune India’s Most Powerful Women’s List in 2021.
Nair is married and has two sons.