Chanel Hires Leena Nair as Youngest, First Female CEO

Chanel has appointed Leena Nair as global chief executive officer, grabbing the company’s youngest and first female CEO after her 30-year tenure at consumer goods group Unilever. She’ll take the helm at the end of January 2022, the Financial Times reported.

Nair will replace Alain Wertheimer, who owns Chanel with his brother Gérard and took over the role from Maureen Chiquet when she left the company in 2016 after “differences of opinion about strategic direction.” Wertheimer will become global executive chair when Nair begins her tenure.

Nair and Wertheimer “will further ensure [Chanel’s] long-term success as a private company,” the luxury brand said in a Tuesday (Dec. 14) statement. She tweeted her excitement about the new role shortly after Chanel made the move official.

I am humbled and honoured to be appointed the Global Chief Executive Officer of @CHANEL, an iconic and admired company.

— Leena Nair (@LeenaNairHR) December 14, 2021

Nair joined Unilever in 1992 and oversaw more than 150,000 employees in more than 100 countries as global head of HR.

“Nair has built a global reputation for progressive and human-centered leadership, delivering significant business impact,” Chanel said in its statement announcing the hire.

In June, Chanel’s chief financial officer said the company was on track to increase revenues by “double digits” this year compared with pre-pandemic levels of $12.3 billion, largely due to U.S. and Chinese consumers.

Related: Luxury Resale Is Booming, But Some Luxury Brands Fear Cannibalization

Resale marketplace ThredUP recently estimated that “the secondhand market is forecast to double in the next five years to reach $77 billion by 2025.” Fashion industry trade journal Women’s Wear Daily (WWD), meanwhile, recently reported that “resale is expected to grow 11 times faster than the broader retail clothing sector to reach $47 billion.”

“We want to retain control of our distribution, and I think that approach was an early contributor to the success of the brand,” Chanel President of Fashion Bruno Pavlovsky told WWD. “We’ve spent the last 20 years securing that control, so we’re not going to give it up now with partnerships in the secondhand marke.

“You can’t personify luxury and want to control everything. It’s important for our customers to be able to resell items, but we have decided not to be part of that process,” he said.