Pauline Brown
Pauline Brown is a longtime leader in luxury goods and former Chairman of LVMH North America, renowned for acquiring, building, and leading some of the world’s most influential brands.
In her groundbreaking new book, Aesthetic Intelligence, she shows businesspeople how to harness the power of their own senses to create products and services that delight their customers and build businesses that last. Her book is based on a course that she designed and taught at Harvard Business School.
Pauline began her career as a Consultant at Bain and subsequently held senior executive roles at Estee Lauder, Avon and The Carlyle Group.
She currently is an Executive-in-Residence at Columbia Business School, a Henry Crown Fellow at the Aspen Institute, and the host of two radio shows on SiriusXM, “Trendsetters” & Tastemakers”.
3 words to describe Nature?
Invincible. Boundless. Magnificent
3 things Nature taught you?
To trust my instincts (they're far more prescient than my thoughts)
To embrace the untamed aesthetic (it's far more vibrant than anything man-made
To accept mortality (it's not the end of a life cycle, but the beginning of a new one)
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Table Mountain, Cape Town
Maroon Lake, Aspen
The Geysers of Iceland
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Transported
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Enveloped
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Roused
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Wonderstruck
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Vivified
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Restive
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
9
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
I grew up on the North Shore of Long Island. I still can smell the air, taste the fishy water, and feel the sand under my wet swimsuit.
Swan Sit
Swan Sit is an independent consultant specializing in digital, marketing and strategy. Having spent the past decade of her career accelerating digital into legacy companies, she held 2 key roles as a Vice President at Nike — overseeing Global Digital Marketing during the Emmy-winning “Dream Crazy” campaign featuring Colin Kaepernick, and running Digital Operations, Product, Supply Chain and Service for a $3B e-commerce business during the Air Jordan 11 Concord launch, the largest in online history. She led digital at Revlon and Elizabeth Arden, using it to pull them out of a turnaround, and ran online strategy for Esteé Lauder, increasing their global footprint from 165 to 435 websites in 5 years. From modernizing 100-year-old brands and partnering with unexpected influencers like Chelsea Handler, Iris Apfel and Gigi Gorgeous, to launching augmented reality makeovers and driving double-digit growth, Swan has demonstrated both the left- and right-brain skills required for a marketer that drives revenue. She was selected as a Brand Innovators 40 under 40 and Marketing Woman to Watch, and took home both Best Social Campaign and Best in Show at the Glossy Awards. You might recognize her as one of the faces in Twitter’s national “She Inspires Me” campaign during the Oscars.
Prior to beauty, Swan was a management consultant at Bain, owned an ad agency focused on emotional branding, was a product manager at Newell (she launched a factory in China during SARS) and created infamous marketing campaigns at Trilogy Software during the dotcom boom. Swan graduated with a BA in Economics from Harvard and an MBA from Columbia.
Swan does speaking engagements around the world on Marketing, Digital Transformation and Leadership in the Digital Age. She is a Board Director of a publicly-traded pharmaceuticals company, advises a variety of businesses and sits on the boards of industry and philanthropic organizations including AdWeek's Diversity and Inclusion Council, L2 Digital Think Tank, Women in Retail, Consumer Goods Technology Council, Impact Network, Foundation Rwanda and Worldview’s space think tank. Having traveled to 85+ countries, her favorites include Antarctica, North Korea, Mongolia, Rwanda, Bhutan, Myanmar and Tanzania for Kilimanjaro. She can often be found smashing a volleyball and chasing restaurant openings, or flying around on skis and horses - her two newest hobbies.
3 words to describe Nature?
Stilling. Wondrous. Challenging
3 things Nature taught you?
Self-reliance
Humility
Interconnectivity
3 most treasured Nature spots?
Any ocean or summit
Antarctica
Palawan
When you look at the ocean, it makes you feel...?
Alive, calm, emotional
When you see a forest, it makes you feel...?
Fresh, awake, adventurous
When you see a volcano, it makes you feel...?
Excited, nervous and... hot? :) I've ventured inside a (mostly) dormant one before
When you see a sunrise or sunset, it makes you feel...?
Grateful, enchanted, like I should be grabbing my camera phone (though the pics never do it justice so we should just enjoy the show)
When you hear thunder, it makes you feel...?
Excited, full of anticipation, ready to dance
When you hear the wind howling, it makes you feel...?
Cozy, cuddly and craving a fireplace
Are you an Ocean, Mountain, Forest, or Desert person?
Ocean, which is odd because I can't even swim! But it hasn't stopped me from scuba diving, snorkeling, wake boarding... basically I'm willing to do anything that has air or floatation, but surfing still evades me. The ocean makes me feel alive and whole; living by it is a life-long dream for me
On a scale of 1 to 10, how important is Nature to your well-being?
8... not necessary in a constant daily state, but periodic ventures to a coast or the top of a mountain, or even the smell of nature or the ocean resets my soul
Share with us a childhood nature memory?
When I was 4 years old, my father took me outside during a typhoon in Hong Kong. We didn't venture far - just out the front door - but I remember the howling wind and warm but slicing rain. And the indescribable smell of the storm I remember to this day. It was electric. I remember hanging onto my father's neck with both arms, my little body flapping in the raging wind. I was scared but also couldn't stop giggling. That's how I still feel going into all my adventures today.