86: Saori Kanno, General Manager, Revlon Japan

After graduating from Keio University, Saori Kanno originally
joined Revlon as a Marketing Director, before becoming the
current General Manager of Revlon Japan. In between, Ms. Kanno
has worked in several other cosmetic companies, making her an
expert in the beauty industry.


 


While still in her mid-30s, Ms. Kanno was scouted to become the
Marketing Director at a prestigious French cosmetics company.
Becoming a manager at a young age, she recalls needing to look
professional as she was managing some staff who were older and
more experienced. As a new manager, Ms. Kanno ensured she
maintained close communication with each of her staff to earn
their trust. She was careful in listening to the team and having
open discussions. She would ask questions like, what is new? What
is happening in the world, in the market, what should we do? By
having such casual conversations on an individual and group
basis, Ms. Kanno gained valuable insight from the team and built
a transparent culture. At the same time, Ms. Kanno is firm that
the objective of any meeting or brainstorming session is to
decision-making and coming up with deadline-driven action items.
iShe says: “the ultimate objective of this kind of discussion is
that we win…we break our current status within our team…[as well
as] win in the market versus our competitors.”


 


Ms. Kanno was also interested in working in the mass-marketing
beauty industry, and thus joined a commercial cosmetics brand as
the Marketing Director after the French company. Ms. Kanno says
she used more or less the same techniques to build trust and
communicate with her staff in her new company, as she says:
“human relationship starts from the heart.” Ms. Kanno also became
eventually took on the dual role of Sales/Marketing Director. She
found it extremely useful to listen to the marketing and sales
team simultaneously to come up with strategies that reflected
both fields’ input.


 


Ms. Kanno returned to Revlon as the General Manager. This time,
Ms. Kanno was determined to take the lead in addition to
listening closely to her team. She had many creative ideas ready
to be implemented. To convince headquarters, Ms. Kanno used her
expert knowledge in the beauty industry and analysis of previous
initiatives. She explains: “the Japanese beauty market is very
different from the others because many of women, even my age, are
still looking for kawaii or lovely, which is not the case for
Revlon, but in order to be successful in a local market, we
really need to understand the consumers.” Ms. Kanno quickly
changed various things such as the way the product was promoted
and recreated the visuals to suit local consumers. Sales
immediately improved, breaking records from the last 50 years of
the company. Ms. Kanno explains that her passion for cosmetics as
a consumer also helped her be confident in her strategy to
dramatically transform Revlon Japan.


 


On leading an engaged team, Ms. Kanno points out that giving
praise and appreciation is crucial. When she hears her team come
up with ideas, Ms. Kanno always congratulates them. On handling
mistakes, Ms. Kanno encourages her team to consider improving the
process to avoid the mistake from happening again. Moreover, on
certain initiatives that do not work out, Ms. Kanno will review
and analyze to try to learn from its failure. Ms. Kanno also
holds executive committee meetings amongst the division head
where they share information so everybody is aware of what is
happening in the company. Ms. Kanno values ideas that come from
the ground up, and thus, encourages her division heads to bring
new ideas to her.


 


On advice to new foreign leaders in Japan, Ms. Kanno emphasizes
the importance of listening to the local Japanese team to build
trust. Secondly, when asking for people’s opinions, Ms. Kanno
recommends giving some space instead of constantly asking
questions. By building rapport through daily communication, and
speaking in a calm tone, Ms. Kanno has seen Japanese employees
relax and open up to foreign bosses. Ms. Kanno defines leadership
as similar to motherhood. She explains: “In my team, I want to
make everybody happy and successful…my mission is giving love and
passion to the team [like a mother would].”