#11 – Helen Zhou "You don’t need to pretend to be somebody else"

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]”.