Ralph Lauren CEO Patrice Louvet Honored by French American Chamber of Commerce Foundation
Ralph Lauren CEO Patrice Louvet shared insights on leadership, culture and resilience at a French-American Chamber Foundation gala held in his honor.
PRAISING PATRICE: The French American Chamber of Commerce Foundation did more than honor Patrice Louvet, chief executive officer of Ralph Lauren Corp., at its annual gala in New York Monday night.
It stirred up some clearly poignant memories for the CEO, who began his remarks at the event with a confession.
“The first time I came to America, I actually did not want to come,” he said. “It was 1974. I was 9. And my brother Didier, who is here tonight, was 6. Our father’s work took our family from Saint-Cloud, just outside of Paris, to a little town in New Jersey called Princeton.
“I had friends, a school, activities, a whole world I understood,” he said. “And all of it was staying behind.”
Although Louvet spoke no English, Princeton gradually became a home that offered a new angle on his native country.
“Looking back across the Atlantic, I saw France more clearly than I ever had from inside it,” he said. “There is no substitute for living, working and connecting in another culture. Sitting somewhere else in the world, your whole perspective shifts.
“You learn resilience, because adversity is part of the journey,” he said. “You learn agility, because you have to adapt. And above all, you learn to listen. That is empathy. All of that makes us better leaders and, I would argue, better people.”
Louvet left, but came back to the U.S. in his early 20s to get an MBA and then started his three-decade career at Procter & Gamble, which saw him working in seven countries across three continents.
“Each one was foreign on the first day,” he said. “Each one with its unique challenges and lessons. Each one became home.”
As CEO at Ralph Lauren, Louvet now oversees teams around the world that have been shaped by different cultures and he regularly uses a skill he started to learn as a 9-year-old in New Jersey: the ability to listen before he speaks.
“This matters now more than ever,” he said. “We have never been more connected, and it has never been easier to assume we understand one another. You can see the whole world on a screen. You can even create a companion with AI. But understanding another culture is still earned the good old-fashioned way. In person, in a classroom, around a dinner table, in a city that is not yet your own. That is what this foundation makes possible.”
The event supports students in the Serge Bellanger French-American Business Scholarship Program.
Originally published by wwd.com. Syndicated material does not necessarily reflect the views of Glamour Canada.
