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Jennifer Woo • Turnaround Queen
"In my family, I was always the kid most interested in fashion," says Jennifer Woo, 28, president of Hong Kong's swankest department store, Lane Crawford—and, it so happens, the daughter of Peter Woo, its parent company's chairman. But being Daddy's girl is hardly Woo's only qualification. In the 18 months since she assumed the helm, Woo has transformed a 154-year-old business from frumpy to fabulous, using a sharp eye for opportunity and that carefully honed fashion sense.
Opportunity came in the form of Hong Kong's new International Finance Center, a sparkling commercial and office complex credited with rejuvenating the city's business district. Woo selected it as the site for Lane Crawford's new 82,000-sq.-ft. flagship store and, audaciously, had it designed and built in less than a year. With its martini lounge, chill-out CD bar and exquisite Yabu Pushelberg interiors, it's unquestionably the most mod retail space in Asia. Ethereal art installations by the likes of Hirotoshi Sawada and Dennis Lin hang from the ceiling and trail along the floor. "It's been a great opportunity to have made a difference to an institution," says Woo, who was educated at a British private school and Wellesley College in the U.S. Lane Crawford has three locations in mainland China and plans to expand. Says Woo, surveying her ultrachic store: "This is the dna and design integrity we'll take to China."
— Liam Fitzpatrick |
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