“I broke every norm”: Leena Nair’s path to CHANEL CEO

The Path is a video series where I chat with some of the most influential leaders in the world exploring the successes, missteps, and key pivotal moments that shaped their professional paths. It’s through these authentic stories that we can learn how to navigate our own career journeys.

My guest this week is Leena Nair. She’s the Global CEO of CHANEL. Before that, she spent 30 years climbing the ranks at Unilever, helping guide a company spanning 190 countries, and breaking barriers every step of the way. 

Leena's story starts in a small town in India. There were hardly any women role models in her life, but she was one of the first girls to graduate from high school and had always been ambitious. Leena dreamed big - almost impossibly big. 

"There was this event where each of us had to stand up in this girl's school I was going to and say what we wanted to become when we grew up," Leena told me for The Path. "And people were saying all sorts of things - teacher, homemaker.  And then I stood up and I said, ‘I would like to be the Prime Minister of India’, to lots of nervous laughter in the room."

"I was determined," Lenna recalled. "I knew I wanted to have a voice in the world. I didn't know how."

She started by following in the footsteps of her many male cousins, who were getting into engineering. "That's what everyone seemed to be doing. I wouldn't say it was a big career decision."

It wasn't. Before very long Leena realized engineering wasn't for her. So, she took her first big risk: She packed her bags, went to business school, and in her final year, landed a summer internship at Unilever. She stood out. Leena was hired into their prestigious management training program, and one of her first full-time jobs was selling tea in rural India. 

Unilever was a "fantastic training ground," Leena says. She kept dreaming big, raising her hand for the toughest assignments. She rose to Chief Human Resource Officer, Unilever's first woman in that role. She was reimagining HR. Leena launched “Career by Choice,” giving women the flexibility to re-enter the workforce. She helped Unilever reach gender parity in management almost a year ahead of schedule.

Eventually, Leena was told she was on a very short list of prospects, three, to become Unilever's next CEO. "Life was perfect," Leena said.

But then came an unexpected call from Chanel. A luxury brand steeped in French heritage – a universe away from mass-market goods. The top job at Unilever was within her grasp. She wasn't looking for a job. "I had not created a resume for 30 years, and here was Chanel calling."

And yet, something clicked. "Over a period of nine months, slowly but surely, I was convinced that Chanel would be a compelling choice for me," Leena said.

But the young girl who once declared she'd like to be Prime Minster learned along her journey that the top job isn't about appearances, for proving that you've achieved. it's an opportunity to make sure things are done right.

"I've always believed business must have positive impact in the world," Leena said. "I mean, the reason I wanted to be CEO was not power or fancy designation. It's because I see business having such a voice in the world, such an impact in the world."

The young woman who sought the toughest assignments at Unilever was now in a position to assign them to herself, and she has. But her focus is on more than the bottom line. 

Leena expanded Chanel’s philanthropic reach to over 50 countries, increasing economic opportunities for women and girls. She’s investing in the brand’s creative core, protecting the craftspeople behind Chanel’s most iconic work. And she’s pushing forward on climate goals, cutting emissions, rethinking supply chains, and making long-term choices in an industry built on fast cycles.

She says her job isn’t just to honor Chanel’s past, it’s to make sure the brand is just as iconic a century from now. 

As ambitious and confident Leena may have been, even she realizes her path has been amazing. "I could not have imagined. I don't think anybody in my town could have imagined. They're still making sense of it," she said. “And Chanel has been everything I dreamt of and more.”

My takeaways:

From a young age, Leena knew that if something had never been done before, it was just an invitation to be the first.

Leena grew up in a town where girls rarely had careers and ended up leading one of the most renowned brands in the world. She studied engineering but then pivoted toward her true passion: people. At Unilever, she didn’t just rise, she redefined what leadership could look like for women, for working parents, for anyone who didn’t fit the mold. And when a call came from an industry she’d never worked in, she leaned on what she knew best: How to listen, how to connect, how to lead by understanding people.

Be intentional in your career. Prepare to be ready to take on any role on your path.

Leena said lots of her peers often say that opportunity just falls in their laps, like her move to Chanel, serendipity plays an outsized role. But she thinks that in career trajectory, luck favors the prepared. "I have been an intentional person in my career, " she said. "I would always think of the next destination role or the next after that." 

"And it was not so much about getting that role. It was much more about saying, 'What is the learning trajectory I have to go through to be able to be so ready for that role that when the opportunity comes, I'm the right and ready person for it?'"