81: Jerome Chouchan, CEO, President of Godiva Chocolatier for Japan, South Korea, Southeast Asia, India, Australia and New Zealand

Born in France, Jerome Chouchan has more than 25 years of
experience working in the Japanese and Asian business
environment. He began his career in Japan starting the local
branches for the French high jewellery brand Mellerio dits Meller
and the French Government Mint Monnaie de Paris. Mr. Chouchan
then worked for the fashion brand Lacoste as their North Asia
Regional Director, before becoming the Business Development
Director for Hennessy, the famous Cognac maker. A move to the
famous Spanish porcelain company, Lladro, saw Mr. Chouchan become
their Managing Director for Japan and Asia before he finally
became the current CEO of Godiva in 2010. Mr. Chouchan is also a
long-time participant in the Japanese martial art of kyudo, the
way of the bow, and has risen to the rank of 5th Dan, as well as
being an accredited instructor. He has written the book, Target,
on how the philosophy of Japanese archery can be applied to
business.


In his interview, Mr. Chouchan discusses coming to Japan as a
young 25-year-old after graduation, in which he had the choice of
doing compulsory military service or being part of a government
program to help companies increase their exports. This led to him
choosing Japan as he was interested in the country, and there he
set up the local branch of the French high jewellery brand
Mellerio dits Meller. Mr. Chouchan describes this first job as an
‘adventure’ as he was working by himself and did not speak
Japanese upon arrival. Additionally, as a young man in a culture
that respects age and experience added to the challenge. However,
by the time he moved on Mr Couchan had established relationships
with 20 retailers for his French suppliers.


When arriving at the Spanish company Lladro, Mr. Chouchan was
engaged in his first significant leadership position, leading a
team of approximately 70 people. By going out with the sales
teams to meet customers and understand their work, rather than
sitting in his office and reading reports, Mr. Chouchan was able
to build trust and be accepted by his team members. He even
participated in selling product to customers during exhibitions
at department stores. It was during his time with Lladro that Mr.
Chouchan came up with the innovative idea to make porcelain
figurines aimed at the Japanese market for Boys Day (Tango no
Sekku) and Girls Day (Hinamatsuri). At the time this was a
controversial move, even within his Japanese team, where the
feedback was that Japanese people would only want to buy
European-style products from a Spanish company. However, the
decision to make figurines aimed at the local market was a great
success for Lladro.


Mr. Chouchan continued with his innovated business ideas when he
moved to Godiva, the luxury chocolate company, which had been
experiencing several years of stagnant sales when he arrived. In
a shake up of the company’s advertising strategy, Mr. Chouchan
went all-in on TV advertising, which was highly unusual for a
luxury brand at the time. This move proved to be a masterstroke
with Mr. Chouchan stating that the company saw immediate growth
of 20% as a result.


New product development, or the burden of generating new ideas,
is an issue that Mr. Chouchan admits all companies, including his
own, must deal with. He explains that if the task of generating
new ideas and products is placed on existing staff who already
run the company’s core processes, then there is very little
innovation achieved as they are too busy with the core processes
of the company. To overcome this issue at Godiva, Mr. Chouchan
has set up an innovation team to create a new product every month
in small amounts for testing in the market.


On advice for newcomers to Japan, Mr. Chouchan believes the first
few months are critical as that is when you will develop your
first impressions and others will develop their impressions of
you. He advises leaders to go out of the office and visit
customers with their teams so they can learn the business
firsthand and ask a lot of questions. Finally, he emphasizes the
need for leaders to be capable decision makers and be able to say
‘yes’ or ‘no’.