The Ultimate Power Woman – Andrea Jung

Ms. Andrea Jung is chairman of the board and chief executive officer of Avon Products, Inc. Jung, a graduate of Princeton University, joined Avon Products, Inc. in 1994 as president, product marketing for Avon U.S. She was elected president, global marketing, in 1996, an executive vice president in 1997, president and a director of the company in 1998, chief operating officer from 1998 to 1999, chief executive officer in 1999 and chairman of the board in 2001. Previously, she was executive vice president, Neiman Marcus and a senior vice president for I. Magnin. Ms. Jung is also a director of Apple Inc., Catalyst, a nonprofit corporate membership research and advisory organization, and chairman of the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations. In 2001, she was named one of the 30 most powerful women in America by Ladies Home Journal. Jung was named one of Forbes 100 Most powerful women in 2004. In 2009, Forbes ranked her the 25th most powerful woman. What sets her apart from many of the leaders in her rank is that Ms. Jung is fluent in Mandarin. Smart lady!

ASIANCE: Having been born in Canada and brought up in Massachusetts, how were your Chinese roots incorporated into your North American lifestyle?

Andrea Jung: My upbringing was a very traditional Chinese upbringing, and I’ve always tried to honor that tradition and still be a successful American in business. It’s been an interesting journey. I grew up where conflict and confrontation were not part of the culture and I think I’ve continued to manage that way, although I’m more assertive but I don’t think I’m aggressive. Those are some things that I think I’ve kind of evolved myself to be able to mold myself to operating and working in a North American non-Asian environment. It still keeps part of my heritage in my personality or the way I was brought up intact, and that’s important to me.

ASIANCE: Have you had any difficulties identifying with your Chinese roots?

AJ: I have a lot of passion for going back to China. I’m very proud of how far China has come in terms of opportunities. The country and the people—there’s not a single industry today that doesn’t project China to be the leader whether it’s 2015 or 2025. Every industry, every business, China is clearly in the forefront. As a Chinese woman, I’m very proud of that. Avon has a presence in Asia, it’s a big and important region for us and China is one of the big growth markets for us as well.

ASIANCE: Are there any core values or traditions from your Chinese heritage that have helped you to be so successful?

AJ: The two that I attribute to my upbringing are perseverance and patience. The Chinese definition of long term is very different from the American definition of long term, which can be seven days as opposed to one. Having that medium- and long-term vision and being able to think out way ahead and come back, is how I like to think as a business women. I learned perseverance early. I had started off in a retail training program. I had just gotten out of college and it really felt like menial work. I was changing hangers on clothes. I called my parents and said, ‘This is not what I want to do with my Ivy League education, I think I’m going to quit.’ And they said, ‘Quit? You just started. That’s not perseverance. We didn’t raise you to quit.’ That had a huge impact on my life. I’ll never forget that because that really was a credo in my household, you persevered, good times, bad times, through the ups and the downs. Now that I’ve been running Avon for over 10 years, and I’ve been with the company almost 18, it’s perseverance. Seeing it through cycles and chapters has really made a big difference to me and that comes distinctly from my Chinese background.

The second core value is patience. My father is the quintessential definition of patience. Everything, in time, works itself out. That has been personally as well as professionally, it is a great quality that has been passed down to me. Underneath it all, even when I’m anxious, on the surface, I need to be I’m calm and patient. That’s my heritage. I have my days, but I try to take it all in stride.

ASIANCE: We live in a transitional period wherein the number of women in the workforce is growing but not completely congruent with traditions and long-held roles in society. What are the difficulties of being a woman in your position?

AJ: Being a Chinese woman has required some real self-reflection on how to lead; the cultural aspects of being Chinese in terms of that aggressiveness and being conflict averse. I’ve had to nuance and work around some of those natural instincts, which are important as a leader. I’ve been fortunate to watch the evolution of women in business leadership. I was one of the first CEOs, in 1999, there were only two of us. Today there are many more women in leading roles. So a decade later it is a sign of progress. But I’m proud to be the only Chinese-American female CEO in the Fortune 500. I hope it serves as a good role model example for young Chinese-American women. Anything’s possible. You can make it all the way to the top.

ASIANCE: How have you maintained a balance between a successful career and your personal or family life?

AJ: My daughter, Lauren, is going to be 21 and going to be a senior at Princeton; my son, Jamie, who should be running in here any minute now, is going to be 13. I have always tried to live with the philosophy that you can’t be the perfect executive and the perfect mother all in one day, but you have to make some choices. There are days when the company doesn’t come first, and there are days when the children don’t come first. But I hope it’s always the right day. I try not to miss if it’s the most important piano recital or game or the most important meeting, and they don’t necessarily coincide on the same day. My own personal advice to myself and to others is – don’t feel guilty on either side of it. I used to feel guilty. If I was with my kids I felt guilty about work, and if I was at work, I felt guilty about my kids. That was the early years. I’ve learned that as a working mother you can’t have it all and certainly not in one day anyway. You can find the balance.

View From The Top series, Avon Chair and CEO Andrea Jung

ASIANCE: You planned to attend law school after graduating with an English degree at Princeton, but you decided to put it on hold while you took a position at Bloomingdale’s and eventually at I. Magnin, Neiman Marcus and so on. Was it a tough decision to take a chance on a contingent career path over law school? What was your thought process on making that decision?

AJ: I don’t regret that. I never intended to be a CEO and I didn’t dream of being in business, but it’s been an unbelievable opportunity for me and the ride of a lifetime. It’s a very, very special company where I get to see women whose lives are changed by what we do as a business; that’s worked with a purpose. Whether it’s the work we do for breast cancer all over the world, including China, or the work that we do fighting violence against women or whether it’s the work itself that empowers women to earn for themselves. The last economic crisis made it even more important. With unemployment going up all over the world, there never was a better time to become involved in selling Avon. We’ve recruited record numbers of women all over the world, and that was very fulfilling. My philosophy is to look forward not backwards; what good is it to regret? I don’t regret things in the past. You always hope to learn from your choices. I’ve never looked back since I joined Avon.

ASIANCE: Were you ever an “Avon Lady”?

AJ: I did do a stint as an Avon representative when I joined the company. It’s part of the experience. I sold in upstate New York. I went door to door. I have a new level of respect for all of our Avon representatives because selling is not easy. I was not one of the most successful Avon ladies. I did it when I was an executive for a couple of years, off and on. As a result of my experience, we changed the 48-page purchase order filling in dots with a No. 2 pencil, and we started moving invoicing online and getting it done on the Internet.

ASIANCE: What does success mean to you?

AJ: It means doing some work that makes a difference. All of us can have jobs and career titles, but for me it really is: ‘Did my work have some lasting impact, did it change society or a community for the better?’ Success is being involved in work that truly impacts women one at a time to a collective set of millions and millions of women who have had a better life because of the company they’ve been involved in. That is a great satisfaction.

ASIANCE: Is there a specific moment that stands out that made you feel you had achieved success?

AJ: I always thought that you had to choose between not-for-profit work and for-profit work, so I did the latter, but it’s also like doing charitable work. The work itself of teaching micro-lending, we are the world’s biggest micro lender, giving women earning opportunities and the associated causes – violence against women and breast cancer. We’ve raised nearly $800 million for the fight for both causes, the largest amount raised by any corporation in the world.

ASIANCE: Being in a CEO position, success often comes with its share of failures. What are some of your failures and how do you move past them?

AJ: I have had plenty of failures – who doesn’t? But the key is to learn from them and to look forward not backward. The company when I joined at end of 1993 was more risk averse, and we had to break out and change everything. We had to change the brand image. When I came, the highest priced skin care product was $12, and we were trying to move it up to $25 to $30, and there was a belief that we would alienate our customers and lo and behold we were able to move the needle and never sold so much in our lives as when we put in the innovation and started to raise the prices. It’s been about risk. Some things haven’t worked. We had a venture in 2001 where we developed a separate line for retail, and that was a small failure, and we closed it down. Part of failing is knowing when to move on. It would have been an even bigger failure if we hadn’t made that decision. There’s nothing wrong with making a mistake but making the same mistake twice is another story.

ASIANCE: You have so many different roles. Do you feel pressure to present yourself a certain way for different audiences? Being Chinese, a woman and a prominent figure in the workforce, are you more in touch with one of these categories than the others or do you feel a balance between them all?

AJ: I am who I am. I don’t play the China vs. the woman vs. the business leader. They are all intertwined and define who I am. I don’t change it from constituent to constituent. There’s a particular pride when I’m in China.

ASIANCE: The slogan for Avon is “the company for women.” Being a beauty-products company, who does this slogan speak not only to women as consumers but also to women in the workforce?

AJ: When we identified the opportunity to make ourselves as the company for women, we were very clear about four constituents: the consumer; the workforce – we have 6.2 million representatives and 99 percent are women although some men who are husbands sell. We give more earning opportunities to more women than any other company in the world; women associates – we have one of the highest percentages of women in management on board in the company; and community – we champion women’s causes, health and human rights. We want all constitutes to benefit.

ASIANCE: What advice do you have for women in the workforce?

AJ: You have to have a passion for what you do, specifically women. There are so many choices. You can have two people with equal competencies, but the one who falls in love with the company or the business is going to put the most into it and get the most out of it. You have to absolutely fall in love with it because nothing comes without sacrifices.

ASIANCE: You’ve directed Avon through transitions, making it more appealing to a younger market as well as to a more culturally diverse market. How hard is it to change a company that has been around for as long as Avon?

AJ: First, it was revitalizing the brand, we had to move from ‘ding-dong Avon calling’ and your grandmother’s brand that was how we were known in the 1980s and early 1990s. Now, we have celebrity spokespeople like Reese Witherspoon, it’s a different brand and products, formulations and packaging and great value. You can get a product at an affordable price all over the world.

The second thing we had to do was transform the selling experience. To be an Avon representative 10 years ago versus one today is a completely different experience. Now, our representatives are technology-enabled. Over 50 percent do business online, and our goal is 100 percent, and we have given them the tools to help them run their businesses and manage. Technology is massive game changer, and we’ve introduced new incentives. We helped modernize direct sales in the 20th century.

Andrea Jung answers bloggers’ questions

ASIANCE: Where do you see yourself in the future?

AJ: Avon is THE company for me. I have no plans to leave. Avon has been not only a huge part of my life, it also has changed me not just as a leader but as a woman. Our work is far from done. We’re reaching women in more countries around the world. There’s so much growth in the emerging and developing markets like China. There are more women in China, India and Asia than there are anywhere else in the world. It’s a huge opportunity, not just to sell our products but to do this through mirco-entreprenuership and by teaching women to be self-sufficient and economically independent. Nowhere is this more important than in China. It comes full circle in my life and the thought that I could actually be involved with work that actually gives back to the communities in China and has the opportunity to change lives in China is a fulfillment in and of itself.

ASIANCE: What’s the best advice you have ever received?

AJ: Follow your compass, not your clock. I actually was passed over in 1997 to be the CEO. There was quite a bit of press around it because a man got the job. I had a couple of offers to be a CEO at other companies, and I got this advice. I realized that it wasn’t really about the title and being CEO; it was about loving the company and loving the work. My head might have told me I should get the top job, but my heart was telling me to stay with the company. I did that, and I’ve never looked back. I did get the job less than two years later, but that wouldn’t change my choice.

ASIANCE: When history looks back at your tenure at Avon, what do you want your legacy to be?

AJ: Hopefully, my time here will be remembered as the decade where the foundation’s work came to life not only in terms of the amount of money raised but how it’s so deeply embedded in every man and woman in the company that they understand that this is the company. It’s not just about selling lipstick, it’s about changing lives. It’s not just about doing well but doing good. I hope more companies do that and use us as an example of how you can balance business profits as well as the social purpose. Businesses that can help the community are critical in every nation, private and public partnerships are going to be more important in every country in helping social progress. That’s one of the legacies I hope I’m remembered for.

Article by Nancy A. Ruhling for Catherine Yan