Episode #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’.