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By Silvia Aloisi and Mimosa Spencer
PARIS, Dec 14 (Reuters) - French fashion house Chanel named
Leena Nair, an executive from Unilever, as its new
global CEO on Tuesday, picking a consumer goods veteran to run
one of the world's biggest luxury goods groups.
Nair's career at Unilever spanned 30 years, most recently as
the chief of human resources and a member of the company's
executive committee.
A British national, born in India, Nair is a rare outsider
at the helm of the tightly controlled family fashion house,
known for its tweed suits, quilted handbags and No. 5 perfume.
The 52-year-old follows U.S. businesswoman Maureen Chiquet,
who came from a fashion background and was CEO of Chanel for
nine years until early 2016.
French billionaire Alain Wertheimer, a 73-year-old who owns
Chanel with his brother Gerard Wertheimer and had originally
taken on the CEO job on a temporary basis, will move to the role
of global executive chairman.
Chanel was founded in 1910 by fashion legend Gabrielle
"Coco" Chanel as a hat boutique on rue Cambon in Paris
and grew to become a byword for French chic.
The group said Nair, who at Unilever oversaw 150,000
people, would join at the end of January and be based in London.
It added that the new appointments would ensure its "long-term
success as a private company."
The recruitment of Nair, who rose through the ranks of
Unilever having started out as a trainee on the factory floor,
comes as the fashion industry is under pressure to show a more
inclusive approach.
Under her watch Unilever achieved gender parity across
global management, according to a Harper's Bazaar profile
published last month, which also highlighted her commitment to
pay the living wage across the supply chain.
Nair serves as a non-executive board member at BT
and has previously served as non-executive director of the
British government's business, energy and industrial strategy
department.
Chanel has fiercely defended its independence and only began
publishing financial results in 2018. It said in July it
expects to increase sales by double digits this year compared
with their 2019, pre-pandemic level of $12.3 billion.
Bernstein luxury goods analyst Luca Solca said Chanel was
following a trend of attracting top executives from the consumer
packaged goods industry.
"Unilever and P&G stand tall as management reservoirs for
the relatively young luxury goods industry," he said, pointing
to Antonio Belloni, general manager of LVMH and a
former president of Procter & Gamble in Europe, and Estee Lauder
head Fabrizio Freda, also a P&G veteran.
(Additional reporting by Siddharth Cavale
Editing by Susan Fenton and Keith Weir)
