Industrialist Anand Mahindra today congratulated Leena Nair, who was recently appointed the global CEO of Chanel. She is the latest Indian-origin person to head a global company, following the likes of Google-parent Alphabet's CEO Sundar Pichai, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella and more recently Twitter's CEO Parag Agrawal.
Ms Nair, 52, was the first female and youngest-ever Chief Human Resources Officer of Unilever - a position she resigned from to join the iconic luxury group.
"So it's not just Silicon Valley but also Fashion Alley that's catching the 'good virus' of Indian CEOs. Bravo Leena! Keep making us proud," Mr Mahindra posted on Twitter.
So it's not just Silicon Valley but also Fashion Alley that's catching the ‘good virus' of Indian CEOs. Bravo Leena! Keep making us proud. https://t.co/CN54EtMdVs
— anand mahindra (@anandmahindra) December 17, 2021Last month, when Parag Agrawal was appointed as the CEO of Twitter, the Mahindra group chief had termed the phenomenon as the "Indian CEO virus".
"This is one pandemic that we are happy and proud to say originated in India. It's the Indian CEO Virus... No vaccine against it," Mr Mahindra had tweeted.
Leena Nair is not a part of the Paris fashion scene and is being hailed as a "serial glass-ceiling breaker".
An Electronics and Telecommunications Engineer from Walchand College of Engineering in Sangli, Maharashtra, Leena Nair did her MBA in Human Resources from XLRI Jamshedpur in 1992 before joining as a trainee at HUL, where she advanced up the ranks.
She will start her new role in January 2022.
AdvertisementUntil now, Chanel has been a tightly controlled family business. It 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.
Today Chanel is known for its tweed suits, quilted handbags and No. 5 perfume.
