tipstothetop

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]”.

Dominique Giovine is half French and half American. She grew up in Bordeaux, surrounded by great vineyards, then went on to university in the US where she studied advertising.

Dominique “felt enamored with Moët Hennessy” and has been working for the Maison for more than 20 years now. She started in sales and evolved through the years to become Vice-President and General Manager for the mid-south region of the USA, at Moët Hennessy.

Ten years ago, Dominique was just promoted head of the Georgian market for Moët Hennessy. At that time, her husband was trying to open a new restaurant and to raise funds. The financial pressure on the couple was high, with two young children to take care of: not exactly the perfect situation to start a new job. 

During the first year in her new job, Dominique held out. But at the end of the year, she admitted it wasn’t working. She wanted to quit, but her husband convinced her otherwise. At first, she panicked, then she had a click: she would find a solution because giving up was not in her DNA. She worked hard and succeeded once she accepted to stop trying to be perfect: "I needed to let go of this image of perfection, that everything is ok. You do what you can do".