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At a glance
WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT
Leena Nair on resilience, culture, and leading Chanel’s long-term vision
- Leena Nair recounts how being repeatedly underestimated shaped her resilience, determination, and commitment to “lift as you climb.”
- She explains the practices she relies on—affirmations, journaling, mentors, and embracing failure—to handle pressure and take risks, especially as a “first” in many roles.
- She describes why she moved from engineering into people-focused leadership, and what she learned about culture-building from running global HR at Unilever.
- She details how she decided to leave Unilever for Chanel, and how she navigated a major shift from mass-market consumer goods to luxury’s scarcity-and-craft mindset.
- She outlines Chanel’s priorities around long-term brand building, sustainability, philanthropy for women and girls, selective transparency, and responsible engagement with AI.
IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING
5 ideasResilience came from constant negotiation, determination, and refusing to be the “last” first.
She described repeated moments of being told “it can’t be done,” from negotiating to attend engineering school to being underestimated as a leader, and said this built determination, a “thick skin,” and a habit of grabbing opportunities without taking them for granted.
She built confidence by practicing affirmations and aggressively seeking mentors and sponsors.
She said she used affirmations, sought sponsors and mentors proactively (including reaching out to people she didn’t know), and leaned on curiosity and humility—often starting with “I don’t know; I want to find out.”
Her move into HR was driven by a discovery: listening to people was her strongest leadership tool.
She explained that her shift toward HR came from discovering that deeply listening to people on the factory floor taught her more than formal records, and that her natural strength was understanding and motivating people across roles.
Culture transformation starts at the top: role-modeling plus incentives and shared purpose.
She said culture change depends on leaders visibly modeling desired behaviors, aligning incentives and compensation to those behaviors, and grounding people in shared purpose and meaning at work.
Gender parity required supporting women, bringing men along, and enforcing balanced shortlists—every time.
She described achieving gender balance as needing simultaneous work: supporting women to express ambition and confidence, engaging men who may be “gender blind,” and changing culture via disciplined processes like balanced shortlists for every appointment and promotion.
WORDS WORTH SAVING
5 quotesA 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.
— Leena Nair
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?
— Leena Nair
Once you embrace failure, you can take risks.
— Leena Nair
Seek to understand before you seek to change was a big philosophy those few months.
— Leena Nair
People never remember what you said, what you did. But people remember how you made them feel.
— Leena Nair
SPEAKERS
Ayesha Karnik
hostStanford Graduate School of Business moderator/interviewer for the View From The Top series.
Leena Nair
guestGlobal CEO of Chanel.
High quality AI-generated summary created from speaker-labeled transcript.
