Nair has fought stereotypes before becoming Chanel's global CEO, making her the only woman of colour leading a major global luxury brand
Leena Nair, Global CEO, Chanel
Imaging : Kapil Kashyap
In 1992, Leena Nair, an engineer from Kolhapur, Maharashtra, began her career as a management trainee at Hindustan Unilever. Over the years, she steadily climbed the corporate ranks, breaking barriers along the way to become Unilever’s first female, first Asian, and youngest-ever chief human resources officer (CHRO), responsible for 150,000 employees.
Her journey didn’t stop there—she later took on the role of global CEO at Chanel in January 2022—making her the only woman of colour leading a major global luxury brand—a significant milestone in the fashion industry.
At every stage, Nair has navigated the challenges of being a ‘first’ and an ‘outsider’, turning them into opportunities for growth and leadership. Growing up, Nair frequently battled gender stereotypes. “When I was nine, our schoolteacher asked us what we wanted to become when we grew up—the other girls said they wanted to be teachers, homemakers, housewives, but I said, ‘I want to be the prime minister of India’. Some other girls were sniggering as it seemed an impossible idea to them, but as a young girl, I was determined, probably the most determined girl the town had seen,” she tells Forbes India.
Her appointment as Chanel’s global CEO was a pivotal moment in the fashion industry. After three decades at Unilever, quitting was a difficult decision, but she found the opportunity to lead Chanel ‘irresistible’. “The opportunity to lead Chanel was compelling,” she says. “It’s a brand that talks to women, with an incredible founder who was the most radical innovator of her time. It was also the values of Chanel, as a company, that appealed to me—an independent business that thinks long-term and has creation and people at its heart.”
Coming from an industry driven by mass production, Nair was struck by the level of craftsmanship and detail involved in creating a single Chanel bag or garment—luxury is all about preciousness, rarity and building true desirability. This deepened her appreciation for artisans and fuelled her belief that, “In our current world, AI is inevitable and, of course, we are experimenting as you would expect from a company like Chanel. However, all our experimentation is within the context of our absolute commitment and dedication to human creation, and human craftsmanship, and human relationships.”
(This story appears in the 18 April, 2025 issue of Forbes India. To visit our Archives, click here.)