52-year-old Leena Nair, the new global CEO of French fashion giant Chanel has become the latest to join a growing list of Indian-origin corporate executives heading the world’s biggest companies. Nair joins as boss of the iconic brand which was founded Coco Chanel, the woman regarded as one of the pioneers of the modern fashion sense.
Until now, she was the Chief Human Resources Officer at Unilever. Nair was the "first female, first Asian, youngest ever" CHRO of the British FMCG giant. She will take over the reins at Chanel in January.
Here’s what we know about Leena Nair, the new boss of Chanel.
Who is Chanel’s new global CEO Leena Nair?
Hailing from Kolhapur in Maharashtra, Nair had early education at Holy Cross Convent School in her hometown before pursuing electronics engineering from Walchand College of Engineering in Sangli. She then pursued management from XLRI, Jamshedpur where she graduated as a gold medallist.
She started her career as a management trainee with Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL) around three decades back in 1992. She started off working in three different factories including the Lipton (India) factory as personnel manager.
Nair grew through the ranks to become Unilever’s senior vice president, HR in 2013. She also became the company’s global head of diversity. She then joined the Unilever Leadership Executive (ULE) in London in 2016.
As per her former colleague Unilever CEO Alan Jope, Chanel’s new global CEO has been a “pioneer throughout her career at Unilever, but no more so than in her role as CHRO, where she has been a driving force on our equity, diversity and inclusion agenda, on the transformation of our leadership development, and on our preparedness for the future of work.”
“She has played a critical role in building our purpose-led, future-fit organisation, which is now the employer of choice in over 50 countries globally,” Jope added.
Unilever’s executive profile page on Leena Nair quotes her, “My purpose: to ignite the human spark for a better business and a better world.”
