Leena Nair, Chanel Global CEO Who Rose Through Unilever’s HR Ranks

Leena Nair is the Global Chief Executive Officer of Chanel, the privately owned French fashion and beauty house. She took up the post in January 2022 after three decades at Unilever, where she rose from management trainee to Chief Human Resources Officer.

Her appointment drew attention because she came from consumer goods and human resources rather than from the Paris fashion world. In May 2026 she presented results showing Chanel back to revenue growth in 2025, after a decline the year before.

Education

Nair holds a Bachelor of Engineering in electronics and telecommunications from Walchand College of Engineering in India.

She went on to earn an MBA from XLRI, the Xavier School of Management, which was formerly known as the Xavier Labour Relations Institute. Her board biography published by BT Group in 2019 lists both degrees.

Career

Nair joined Unilever in 1992 as a management trainee at Hindustan Lever, the company’s business in India. A year later she became factory personnel manager at Lipton (India) Ltd, an early posting on the shop floor.

Unilever’s own record of her roles shows a steady climb through the Indian operation. She was employee relations manager at Hindustan Lever in 1996 and management development planning manager in 1997.

In 2000 she became HR manager of Hindustan Lever, followed by HR manager of Home and Personal Care India in 2003. She was named general manager HR of Home and Personal Care India in 2004 and general manager HR of Hindustan Lever in 2006.

In 2007 she became Executive Director HR of Hindustan Unilever, the new name of Hindustan Lever. BT’s biography adds that between 2007 and 2012 she was also Vice President HR for South Asia.

Unilever said she was the first woman on the management committee of its Indian business and its youngest executive director. During those years she led the move of the Foods business from Bangalore to Mumbai.

In 2013 she moved to a global role as Senior Vice President for Leadership and Organisational Development and Global Head of Diversity. In that job she worked on the creation of a leadership centre in Singapore, according to the company.

In March 2016 Unilever appointed her Chief Human Resources Officer and a member of the Unilever Leadership Executive. The company described her as its first female, first Asian and youngest CHRO.

Unilever’s leadership page also listed her at the time as a Trustee of the Leverhulme Trust, a charity that funds research and education.

In the CHRO role she was responsible for the people agenda of about 160,000 employees across some 160 markets, BT said when it announced her board appointment in June 2019.

She joined the BT Group board as a non-executive director at the end of the company’s annual meeting on 10 July 2019. She sat on its Remuneration, Nominations and Digital Impact and Sustainability committees.

On 14 December 2021, Chanel named her Global Chief Executive, based in London, with a start date in January 2022. Unilever confirmed she would leave in January 2022 to take the role.

She left the BT board at the close of its annual meeting on 14 July 2022. BT said she stepped down because of her increased executive duties as Global CEO of Chanel.

Current Roles

• Global Chief Executive Officer, Chanel (since January 2022)
• Based in London, where Chanel said she would lead the house from

Key Achievements

From the factory floor to the top HR job

Nair spent close to 30 years at Unilever and held about a dozen roles there. She moved from a factory personnel role at Lipton in India to the company’s global leadership team in London.

• 1992: management trainee, Hindustan Lever
• 2007: Executive Director HR, Hindustan Unilever
• 2016: Chief Human Resources Officer, Unilever

Programmes for women returning to work

At Unilever’s business in India she introduced the Career by Choice programme. The scheme was designed to help women who had left the workforce to return to their careers, the company said.

Leading Chanel through a sales dip and back to growth

Chanel’s revenue rose 16% on a comparable basis to 19.7 billion dollars in 2023, her second year in charge. Sales then fell 4.3% on a comparable basis in 2024, to 18.7 billion dollars, as demand in Asia weakened.

In 2025 revenue rose 2% in currency-adjusted terms to 19.3 billion dollars and operating profit grew 5% to 4.7 billion dollars, Reuters reported. Nair said investments made in 2024 had laid the ground for the rebound.

• 2023 revenue: 19.7 billion dollars, up 16% comparable
• 2024 revenue: 18.7 billion dollars, down 4.3% comparable
• 2025 revenue: 19.3 billion dollars, up 2% currency-adjusted
• 2025 operating profit: 4.7 billion dollars, up 5%

A new creative chapter

During her tenure Chanel appointed Matthieu Blazy, formerly of Bottega Veneta, to lead its fashion collections. The house announced the choice in December 2024, and he presented his first collection in October 2025.

Reuters linked the 2025 return to growth with demand for his designs, quoting a Harrods buyer on the number of new clients the house was drawing in.

Expanding the store network

Chanel kept opening boutiques through the slowdown. Fortune reported that it opened 15 stores in China in 2024 and planned further growth in India and Mexico.

Reuters said the house opened 41 stores in 2025 and planned about 30 openings in 2026, nine of them fashion boutiques.

Luxury houses have also turned to new markets in the Gulf, where Saudi Arabia has emerged as a growing luxury retail destination. Reuters said the Middle East made up about 4% of Chanel’s revenue in 2025.

The Company in Numbers

• Revenue: 19.3 billion dollars (2025)
• Operating profit: 4.7 billion dollars (2025)
• Revenue growth: 2% currency-adjusted (2025)
• Store openings: 41 (2025)
• Employees: more than 36,500 (2023)
• Boutiques worldwide: more than 600 (2023)

Chanel is privately owned, yet it publishes yearly results. Reuters set its 2025 figures beside those of Hermès and of LVMH, the group led by Bernard Arnault.

Awards and Honours

• Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE), New Year Honours 2025, for services to the retail and consumer sector

In Their Own Words

On Chanel’s 2025 results, Nair told Reuters in May 2026: “What we saw in 2025 was a creative momentum across all our business activities.”

A year earlier, presenting the 2024 figures in May 2025, she said in a statement: “We saw challenging macroeconomic conditions which had an impact on sales in some markets.”

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