Episode #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].”