Leaning-in Interview Series #1 Sarah Young O’Donnell

I had the pleasure of interviewing Sarah Young O'Donnell, as the first in a series of women in Asia who are successful and already living out the principles outlined in Sheryl Sandberg’s Lean In. O'Donnell is the Chief Executive Officer of Seibu Hong Kong and Beauty Bazaar/Harvey Nichols China. I’d met her at a talk she gave at an event held by The Women's Foundation attended by leaders in the luxury industry, and her background and career trajectory are truly inspiring. I had a chance to sit down with O'Donnell and ask her 10 questions pertaining to how she has been able to navigate her industry, develop her career and become a woman business leader in Asia. Before I go into the interview, here is Sarah's impressive bio:

Sarah Young O'Donnell is the Chief Executive Officer of Seibu Enterprise Co., Ltd., overseeing the Seibu department store business in Hong Kong as well as the development new cosmetics mega-stores, including Beauty Bazaar By Harvey Nichols, in Hong Kong/China and the new Beauty Avenue megastore to be rolled out in Langham Place Hong Kong*. Prior to joining the C-suite of Seibu, O'Donnell held management positions in Asia at the Dickson Group, Warner Brothers Studio Stores and the Lane Crawford Group. Before arriving in Asia, O'Donnell was a rising star in merchandising and store management at Bloomingdale's in New York. She holds a BA in Political Science from Wellesley College as well as an AS in Design from Parsons School of Design, and she has an MA (pt) in the History of Art and Architecture at Tufts University and was a Teaching Fellow in Fine Arts/History of Art and Architecture at Harvard University. She is married and has three children.

(J: Jennifer Cheng, S: Sarah Young O’Donnell)

J: How did your diverse educational background (in political science, art, architecture, and design) influence your career path?

S: Elements of what I studied relate to what I do today and the problems I have to solve. When it comes down to it, the retail industry is analytical, creative, visual, and influenced by political and economic factors. It's really quite useful to look at business from a broader perspective and within a larger context. The ability to think contextually is very helpful.  My fields of study and educational background all helped me to gain insight and build a strong foundation for the kind of thinking required in my career path.

J:  What do you enjoy most about your role?

S:  I'm a business and numbers person, so I can't help this, but I do love the immediate gratification of seeing sales and profit of course. I love the process too – everything from creating new concepts, reworking concepts that aren't working, formulating business models, getting them off the ground, negotiations, building effective teams and then leading those teams.  It is very rewarding to be able to identify the right individuals for the team, pick the right assortment of strengths and talents, then channeling them for the best results and outcomes.  I don't mean to put it into adversarial terms but sometimes it's really like mobilising your forces and going to battle. At the end of the day, everything does come down to making money and negotiations are a bit of a dance. You have to leave something on the table for the other party so that everyone emerges with a bit of win.  I get a huge thrill from the art of negotiation. There's an amazing rush one experiences from getting a product out and on the floor, and it's such an exciting moment when it sells out.  Then it's on to thinking of what's next, and what comes after that.  The industry is so dynamic in this way.

J:  What has surprised you the most about the luxury industry?

S: When I first started, the luxury industry was very different. The customers interested in luxury tended to fit a certain demographic, mainly older and more conservative. Brands were by and large traditional and outdated.  Now the luxury industry has become much more aspirational and appeals to a much wider spectrum of customers in age and socioeconomic background. People used to buy to “fit in” whereas now it's about expressing themselves. You also have this interesting confluence of luxury and the arts like Takeshi Murakami and LV. Now you can even see street style influencing luxury and vice versa; it's no longer just top down. Finally, it's interesting to see how the different markets have evolved in terms of luxury. The Japanese used to be the dominant market for luxury. It's now post-luxury. In Hong Kong, the customer is so discerning and sophisticated some luxury is almost “too mass” for them. In China which had insatiable appetite for luxury, there's been a change in this desire in that there are a lot of facets developing within the luxury market. It's not about pure status acquisition anymore – you have this abundance of tastes and tastemakers.

J: How have you overcome challenges in the workplace?

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