86: Saori Kanno, General Manager, Revlon Japan

<p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>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.”</p> <p> </p> <p>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.</p> <p> </p> <p>Ms. Kanno returned to Revlon as the General Manager. This time, Ms. Kann