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Since January, Chanel has a new general manager. Her name is Leena Nair. This Briton of Indian origin lives in London, where the group’s head office is located. It is also from there that she will run the famous fashion house.
Leena Nair is a woman with an atypical background. Dark hair, piercing eyes, the smile of a movie star… Leena Nair does not come from the seraglio. His appointment as head of the luxury group came as a surprise. Leena Nair arrives at Chanel after thirty years at Unilever, the giant of mass distribution, which she has made a 100% equal company in terms of gender equality at the management level, the sector she led.
“Kolaphur is in my heart”
This charismatic woman started at the bottom of the ladder. Leena Nair was born 53 years ago in Kolaphur, western India, where she received her secondary education. These years of apprenticeship, she remembers during a meeting with the students of her former school: “ Kolaphur is in my heart forever. I love his cuisine, I love everything this city represents. I couldn’t refuse your invitation because I know you are Kolaphur’s future. You are called to make a difference. And this not only for your city, but for the whole world. “
“You can achieve anything you want in your life”
Dreaming big, especially when you’re born a girl, is her motto. With an engineering degree in hand, Leena immediately noticed that she had made a mistake in her choice of studies and joined a management school; she finished major in her promotion. She has just found her way: to supervise and organize work within a company. In the early 1990s, Leena joined Unilever as a simple intern and rose through the ranks to become twenty years later the first woman, first Indian and youngest HRD in the history of the group. His source of inspiration? His father : “He has always supported me. I remember when I was little people would come to our house and say to my father reproachfully: Don’t you have a son? You only have two daughters! It hurt, because I thought I was a good person, but not enough. But my father encouraged me: you can achieve anything you want in life. “
Personality outside the seraglio
This is not the first time that a woman has run Chanel. Until 2016 it was an American, Maureen Chiquet, who was in charge and was replaced by Alain Wertheimer, then president of the group. The novelty this time is that the group went for a rather unusual profile, believes Silvano Mendes, fashion specialist at the Brazilian Service of RFI and teacher at Sorbonne-Nouvelle University: ” It is a sign of openness because we imagine that it will bring in its suitcases certain practices from mass distribution. This is not something new in the world of luxury, but it is quite different, unexpected at Chanel whose management is known to be very concentrated, led either by people close to the Wertheimer family, owner of the brand. , or by personalities from fashion and luxury. “
The lack of transparency of major luxury brands
The fashion world regularly finds itself under fire for its opacity and its practices. In 2017, the British brand Burberry destroyed clothing and cosmetics worth over 30 million euros in the name of brand protection. The little embroiderers of Mumbai had to fight hard to improve their working conditions and wages. Few of the designers still work directly with these embroiderers.
This taste for secrecy, Chanel cultivates it. Like other major fashion brands, the group has often lacked transparency with regard to its supply chains or financial results: “ Chanel is a brand that has the cult of secrecy. It is very recently that she began to communicate publicly about her results, her benefits. But at the same time, she is very popular. It is perhaps one of the names that most embody France, along with Dior and Hermès. It is a brand that is always in search of novelty. “
Social rights of workers
Leena Nair’s watchwords are social inclusion, transparency and sustainability. Words that resonate in the ears of consumers who are increasingly sensitive to the social rights of workers. Bringing these values into the legendary brand that is Chanel will be one of the most important missions of the new director of the house.
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