創業故事:雅芳掌門人成功的鑰匙
For Andrea Jung, the chairman and CEO of Avon Products (AVP), this moment happened right after college, when she was in the management training program at Bloomingdale's. All day everyday, there she was in the stockroom, switching vendor hangers for store hangers on thousands of pieces of clothes. "I remember calling my parents around Thanksgiving and saying, 'You paid for me to have a great education and this is really not that meaningful…Maybe I will quit.'"
對於雅芳產品公司（Avon Products）主席兼CEO鍾彬嫺來說，她在大學畢業後就不得不面臨這樣的一個時刻。當時她正在接受布盧明代爾百貨公司（Bloomingdale's）的經營管理培訓。她整天都得呆在倉庫裏，把成千上萬件衣服上的衣架換成經銷商的衣架。“我記得我在感恩節的時候打電話給我爸媽，我說：‘你們拿錢供我接受優秀的教育，但我現在所做的事情真的沒有一點意義……或許，我真的該辭職了。’”
Jung, who grew up in a traditional Chinese-American family with a tremendous amount of discipline, had made her way to Princeton and wanted to go into the Peace Corps. But her parents didn't have a lot of money, so they insisted she take a more conventional path. When Jung called them about quitting that first job at Bloomingdale's, "the reaction was fast and furious," she recalls. Her parents told her: "You are not quitting. You start at the bottom and you work your way to the top."
鍾彬嫺出生在一個傳統的華裔美國家庭，家教頗爲嚴格，讀完普林斯頓大學（Princeton）後，她曾希望加入美國和平部隊（Peace Corps）。但當時鍾家家境並不富裕，所以，她的父母堅持認爲她應該走一條更爲傳統的道路。所以，當她打電話告訴他們自己想從布盧明代爾辭職時，鍾彬嫺回憶起父母的反應是“迅速而又激烈”。她父母說：“不許辭職。你要從底層做起，一步一個腳印走向成功的頂峯。”
"So, I didn't quit," Jung says. "I persevered, and it ended up being a really terrific run in retail."
鍾彬嫺表示：“於是，我放棄了辭職，選擇了堅持。最後證明，這段經歷讓我在零售行業有了一個很好的開始。”
She traded retail--Bloomingdale's (M) and then Neiman Marcus--for the beauty industry, moving to Avon in 1994. Jung was assigned to create a global Avon brand and did that so impressively that she was considered for the top job three years later. But she got passed over. And though she felt tempted to quit, she stayed. Two years later, she got the CEO job and became the youngest female chief executive in the Fortune 500.
她先後加入了布盧明代爾和內曼•馬庫斯服裝公司（Neiman Marcus），1994年從零售業轉行到化妝品行業，加入雅芳。鍾彬嫺當時接到的任務是，打造一個全球化的雅芳品牌，三年後，她出色地完成了任務，成爲公司CEO的熱門人選，但最後卻未能如願。儘管她當時產生過放棄的念頭，但最後還是堅持了下來。兩年後，她被任命爲CEO，成爲《財富》500強（Fortune 500）公司中最年輕的女性首席執行官。
"Bloom where you're planted," says Jung. "And follow your compass, not your clock," she adds, preaching patience in any career. She has certainly demonstrated that. Now at the helm for 12 years, Jung is No. 5 on the 2010 Fortune Most Powerful Women list and the longest-serving among the female Fortune 500 CEOs. "I feel like the wise old woman CEO, trying to pave the path for a lot more after me," she says.
鍾彬嫺說：“在哪裏紮根，就在哪裏綻放。追隨你的羅盤，而不是時鐘。”她還說，從事任何職業都要具備耐心。她自己就是最好的例子。目前，鍾彬嫺在2010年《財富》雜誌最具影響力商界女性（2010 Fortune Most Powerful Women）中排名第5位；目前，她掌管雅芳已長達12年，是《財富》500強公司中任職時間最長的女性CEO。她說：“現在的我就像個上了年紀的女掌門人，靠着自己的智慧，努力爲更多的後來人鋪平道路。”
Jung is on the boards of Apple Computer (APLL) and General Electric (GE), as well as Avon. And as a single mother of a daughter, 21, and a 12-year-old son, she has learned plenty about juggling work and family. "You can't, in my experience, necessarily have it all in one day," she says. "But you've got to make those choices." Now 52, she could well go and run another big global company after Avon, which had revenue of $10.9 billion last year. But she says, "I don't spend a lot of time thinking about that yet."
目前，鍾彬嫺是蘋果電腦公司（Apple Computer）、通用電氣公司（General Electric）和雅芳公司的董事會成員。她獨自撫養21歲的女兒和12歲的兒子，對於如何平衡工作和家庭，鍾彬嫺總結出了一套經驗。她說：“照我的經驗來看，沒必要非得在一天之內就把所有問題都解決掉，但你必須要做出選擇。” 去年，雅芳的收入達到109億美元。現年52歲的鐘彬嫺完全可以離開雅芳，執掌另外一家大型跨國公司，但她表示：“對於這個問題，我還沒有考慮太多。”
Right now, she is focused on Avon's longevity. As part of the company's 125th anniversary celebration this year, she has traveled to 15 cities around the globe and met with some 5,000 Avon representatives at each stop. The greatest satisfaction of leading Avon, she says, is helping 6.5 million representatives—entrepreneurs in 105 countries—build businesses from the ground up. By providing the money and products for reps to get started, "we're one of the largest micro-lenders in the world today," Jung notes. "Yes, we are a beauty company, but we do more than just sell beauty."
目前，她把主要精力都放在如何保證雅芳的長盛不衰。今年是公司成立125週年，作爲慶祝活動的一部分，她訪問了全球15個城市，每一站都會見了約5，000多名雅芳的經銷商代表。她認爲，領導雅芳最大的滿足感在於，能夠幫助650萬名經銷商——來自105個國家的創業者們——白手起家，開創自己的事業。雅芳在創業初期爲經銷商提供資金和產品，鍾彬嫺強調：“因此，我們是目前世界上最大的小額信貸機構之一。不錯，我們確實是一家化妝品公司，但我們所做的不僅僅是兜售美麗。”
