Jérôme Chouchan, the Frenchman who heads Godiva’s Asia-Pacific business, is guided by ancient Japanese wisdom as he aims for meaningful success. ZARA ZHUANG gets the story
CHOCOLATE was a prominent feature of Jerome Chouchan’s childhood. The president of Godiva Japan since 2010 recalls snacking on the confectionery after playing soccer in his youth and sipping hot chocolate prepared by his mother for family breakfast as two of his fondest cocoa-laced memories.
The Frenchman manages Godiva’s markets of Singapore, Japan, South Korea and Australia, as well as the company’s franchise business across Asia. Since joining the Belgian chocolatier in 2010, he has led it to double the size of its business in Japan within five years — a feat amid what he described as a flat chocolate market and a stagnant economy in Japan. The secret to this coup did not come from business theory, Chouchan says, but from an unexpected inspiration — the ancient martial art of kyudo, or “the way of the bow”.
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