Javier San Juan, President & CEO of L’Oréal Latin America

Why this L’Oréal CEO needed 24-Hour bodyguard protection on his path to success.

We recently interviewed Javier San Juan who is the President & CEO of the Latin American region at L’Oréal. We first got to know Javier when he was the President & CEO of L’Oréal Canada.

This interview is available on iTunes, Stitcher, Google Play and Soundcloud. You can also listen to it directly below.

Here are the three things I learned from the interview

1. Javier is secretly one of the most interesting people in the world. He’s led various parts of the L’Oréal business in numerous countries including Uruguay, Spain, Argentina, Russia, Canada and France while dealing with multiple coup d’états, the mafia, snipers on rooftops, natural disasters and even the kidnapping of his father.
2. Javier’s goal of becoming CEO allows him to play the long game, and make decisions which advance his mission long-term, even though it may feel like a step-back or be uncomfortable in the short term. When leaving Novartis for L’Oréal, he traded the trappings of a 26 year old CFO living in the Philippines and ended up in a sales role driving around in a Renault 5 for L’Oréal in France.
3. There’s a difference between moving faster, and moving further in your career. Javier chose to focus on the latter; his philosophy is to avoid shortcuts. In many of the countries he worked in, corruption was rampant. Bribes were a common way to handle business, but he refused to let his morals slip to make things easier for himself. This refusal to play the corruption game put a target on his back from the local mafia in Russia, requiring him to have 24-hour body guard protection where ever he went while living there.

The type of car Javier was driving for his first sales job

You can listen to this, and future episodes on iTunes, Stitcher, Overcast, Google Play and Soundcloud. Or, you can subscribe below.

Daniel

Daniel Rodic is the Co-Founder of Exact Media, which is transforming the world of direct mail by enabling brands owned by companies like P&G, PepsiCo, Unilever and L’Oréal to distribute samples and coupons using the excess space in eCommerce parcels that have already been shipped to consumer.

Daniel was named Top 30 Under 30 by Marketing Magazine, and represented Canada at the G20 Entrepreneurs Summit in Moscow and Beijing. Daniel served on the Leadership Council for the United Nations Media for Social Impact Summit and he is a 2016 finalist for the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Award.

Note: This story was originally published in LinkedIn