16. From McKinsey to Luxury CEO: Scaling Brands in China, Hiring for Agility, and Bridging HQ vs Local with Jenny Lai

Episode notes

“𝗖𝗵𝗶𝗻𝗮 𝗶𝘀 𝗹𝗲𝘀𝘀 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝘂𝗻𝘁𝗿𝘆 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝗻 𝗮 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘁𝗶𝗻𝗲𝗻𝘁.” Jenny Lai, President & CEO for Mainland China, Hong Kong, and Macau at Bluebell Group, a platform that helps luxury and lifestyle brands enter, scale, and perform across Asia, on the most persistent misunderstanding global HQ teams bring into the China luxury conversation — and why “China” is never one consumer, one city, or one playbook. Jenny’s career arc is unusually “full-stack”: from strategy (McKinsey) to building Michael Kors Greater China from the earliest days, to senior leadership at Louis Vuitton and Versace, and now managing a multi-brand portfolio across categories. The throughline is not glamour. It’s operating speed, decision rights, and the hard work of translating global brand intent into local execution .