Helen Zhou was born in Shanghai, where she was raised by her grandmother. She graduated from the Sun Yat-sen University in English and Business and started her career at a beauty brand in Guangzhou. She is now General manager of Guerlain, China.
In 2013, she applied to Sephora, her first job within the LVMH Group. She had to be interviewed by the Group's President for China. To her great surprise, when she opened the door, the President turned out to be a woman, Anne-Véronique Bruel.
Anne-Véronique, who is now CEO of FRESH, asked her to sit down not in front of her, but beside her: "And this has completely changed the relationship, because sitting on the opposite side as I used to do to report to my line manager, it gives some kind of hierarchy." Helen remembers.
This particular moment made her realize that women can reach the highest positions, while remaining true and authentic: "Being a female leader doesn’t request being a copycat of other leaders”.
Since then, Helen has completely changed her way of being a manager, she doesn't hesitate to express her feelings to her team, to talk about her own difficulties. Finally, Helen realized that « [she can be true to who [she is]”.
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Helen Zhou was born in Shanghai, where she was raised by her grandmother. She graduated from the Sun Yat-sen University in English and Business and started her career at a beauty brand in Guangzhou. She is now General manager of Guerlain, China.
In 2013, she applied to Sephora, her first job within the LVMH Group. She had to be interviewed by the Group's President for China. To her great surprise, when she opened the door, the President turned out to be a woman, Anne-Véronique Bruel.
Anne-Véronique, who is now CEO of FRESH, asked her to sit down not in front of her, but beside her: "And this has completely changed the relationship, because sitting on the opposite side as I used to do to report to my line manager, it gives some kind of hierarchy." Helen remembers.
This particular moment made her realize that women can reach the highest positions, while remaining true and authentic: "Being a female leader doesn’t request being a copycat of other leaders”.
Since then, Helen has completely changed her way of being a manager, she doesn't hesitate to express her feelings to her team, to talk about her own difficulties. Finally, Helen realized that « [she can be true to who [she is]”.
#10 - Masumi Suzuki "It is important to recognize your own achievements"
Confidences particulières
5 minutes 53 seconds
5 years ago
#10 - Masumi Suzuki "It is important to recognize your own achievements"
Masumi Suzuki's background is not common. As a graduate from the Gemological Institute of America, she worked most of her career in the highend jewelry and watchmaking industry.
Masumi joined RIMOWA in 2016 and as Head of sales she now manages a team of 150 people to expand the brand.
In December 2018, Masumi contributed to the opening of the RIMOWA flagship store in Ginza 7 in Tokyo, a huge store of 800 square meters on three floors. The project had only been launched eight months earlier :"It was quite challenging. We had very little time to do everything. At first, we thought we'd never make it." she remembers.
Yet Masumi and her team managed to tackle the obstacles and find solutions. A few months later, the store opened. From that experience, she has learnt to reach her full potential and encourage others to do the same. Before that, Masumi struggled to take credit for her accomplishments.Thanks to the support of her teams, she realized that it was important to speak out loud of her own contributions, although it felt uncomfortable for her – as for many women – to do so.
From that moment, she began to work on her state of mind and change her relationship to success: "I realize how important it is to personally recognize your own achievements and talk openly about them so we can open the door to the next step".
Confidences particulières
Helen Zhou was born in Shanghai, where she was raised by her grandmother. She graduated from the Sun Yat-sen University in English and Business and started her career at a beauty brand in Guangzhou. She is now General manager of Guerlain, China.
In 2013, she applied to Sephora, her first job within the LVMH Group. She had to be interviewed by the Group's President for China. To her great surprise, when she opened the door, the President turned out to be a woman, Anne-Véronique Bruel.
Anne-Véronique, who is now CEO of FRESH, asked her to sit down not in front of her, but beside her: "And this has completely changed the relationship, because sitting on the opposite side as I used to do to report to my line manager, it gives some kind of hierarchy." Helen remembers.
This particular moment made her realize that women can reach the highest positions, while remaining true and authentic: "Being a female leader doesn’t request being a copycat of other leaders”.
Since then, Helen has completely changed her way of being a manager, she doesn't hesitate to express her feelings to her team, to talk about her own difficulties. Finally, Helen realized that « [she can be true to who [she is]”.
