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Leena Nair Chairs As New CEO Of Chanel

by Professional Beauty India

Ms. Nair has joined a growing list of Indian-origin executives who have taken up top roles in some of the world’s biggest companies in recent years.
French luxury fashion house Chanel has named Leena Nair, who previously served as Unilever’s top HR executive, as its new global CEO. Ms. Nair is 2nd woman of Indian origin after PepsiCo’s former CEO Indra Nooyi, who is also coincidentally her mentor, to take over as global CEO of a company.
The announcement comes at a time when the designer label is undergoing a rapid internal transformation to grapple with a pandemic-induced slump. According to a statement released by Chanel, Ms. Nair will be joining the company at the end of January and will be based in London. It added that the new appointments would ensure its “long-term success as a private company”.
Ms. Nair, started her career as a management trainee at Unilever in 1992 and steadily rose to become the “first female, first Asian, youngest ever” Chief Human Resources Officer at Unilever in 2016. Ms. Nair has previously served as a non-executive director of the British government’s business, energy and industrial strategy department. As a result, Chanel’s unusual decision to hire a fashion industry outsider as its new chief executive is also being seen as part of its growing efforts to show a more inclusive approach.
Born in Kolhapur, Maharashtra, Ms. Nair completed her MBA in Human Resources from XLRI, Jamshedpur, in 1992, with a gold medal. She was also featured in Fortune magazine’s 2021 list of most powerful women and widely praised for her people-focused approach to business.

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