1999年，拥有百年历史的美容直销品牌雅芳(AVON)正陷困境，销售和股价都处下跌态势，钟彬娴在此时出任首席执行官，仿佛接了一个烫手山芋。但这并没有阻碍她的勃勃雄心。她接手之后，雅芳的销售额和股价都节节上涨，连通用电气(GE)的前CEO杰克-韦尔奇都以“光芒四射”来称赞她，《财富》杂志也把她选入全美商界50位最有影响力的女士之一。

　　Using smart networking and a keen nose for the nuances of retail, Andrea Jung rises to the top of the world's biggest direct marketer of women's products.<注1> When she began flirting with department store work<注2> after college her parents scoffed. When she started actually taking full-time retail jobs, they gasped, complaining bitterly that she was dumping all they had invested in their little girlsintosthe waste heap and lowering herselfsintosthe same class as street hawkers and used car salesmen.

　　Her parents' sneers, however, turned to applause when Andrea Jung moved to the pinnacle of retailing respectability by becoming President of Avon's Product Marketingsgroupsfor the U.S.<注3> (before moving on to become named CEO of all Avon in late 1999).

　　Jung's list of responsibilities is enough to impress even the snootiest<注4> of parents. The Chinese-American oversees marketing, advertising and product development for all of the U.S., supervising 360 employees. On her slender shoulders now rests the responsibility of not only maintaining but growing the company's .6 billion in annual sales. She also sits on the Board of Trustees of the Fashion Institute of Technology and the Board of Directors of the American Management Association.

　　"No one in my family had a retail or marketing background," says Jung, 41. "They were professionals. They didn't understand just what I was doing by goingsintosretailing. After I started, though, it gotsintosmy blood. I knew this was what I wanted."

　　This determined style sweeps across the landscape of her personal and professional life.<注5> Jung, every morning, takes her five-year-old daughter to the bus stop, then walks to her mid-Manhattan office by 8 a.m. And she insists on returning home by 7:30 p.m. for dinner at home with her husband and daughter.

　　Her professional style reflects her no-nonsense directness. She never shies away from seeking advice and aggressively sought out and cultivated senior women executives to serve as her mentors.<注6>

　　Introducing more Avon cosmetics to American women is no easy task. The 108-year-old company sells billion of beauty goods every year around the world. It's the world's largest producer of mass-market perfumes, makeup and fashion jewelry. Every American woman knows the name. And by the time they reach their mid-30s, most have picked the cosmetics brand they'll remain loyal to. These are the customers Jung must win over if she is to make a success of her tenure at Avon.<注7>

　　Increasing sales in a market saturated with beauty products and savvy consumers has proven a daunting task even for a giant of Avon's stature.<注8> In 1993, the year before Jung came aboard, the company's U.S. sales dipped by 1% though sales in all other world markets increased, especially in Asia.

　　The chance to boost sagging U.S. sales thrilled Jung when Avon offered her the job in January of 1994. After successful stints at exclusive retailers like Neiman Marcus and I Magnin<注9> , she wanted to try her hand in the decidedly less glamorous but far larger mass-market segment.

　　She expanded the number of products offered to long-time customers by introducing a line of lingerie and casual wear<注10> . This generated new revenue from an established consumer base. "We tried to be the first to come out with some ideas," she says as she explains the need to constantly be on the lookout for new products. The next step involved increased advertising.

　　These are all tricks of the marketing trade Jung gleaned from a 15-year career she had never intended to enter. But she's hardly an accidental success. Jung's been driven to achieve since the day she turned five, when her mother put her in front of the family piano and taught her how to bang out<注11> basic chords.

　　"I was still taking piano lessons up until 18 months ago," Jung says. "And if I had one thing I could add to my very full calendar, it would be that. That's one of my personal goals because it helps balance all parts of your life and I really get a lot of enjoyment out of playing Mozart and Beethoven." And Avon's corporate culture also appealed to Jung. Women form one quarter of the company's Board of Directors and nearly half of its senior officers. At Avon, Jung points out, there is no glass ceiling to squelch<注12> her advancement. And how companies treat women has always played a major role in her decision making.

　　"I'm very selective in the companies I work for," she says. "I started at Bloomingdales because it was committed to developing women. When I went to I Magnin in San Francisco, it was to accompany a female CEO, and because there's a strong Asian population in that city, I never encountered a glass ceiling because of my race."

　　Even if companies like Avon didn't exist, Jung insists she still would have pursued a marketing career. It might mean banging her head against a glass ceiling, but Jung found the dynamics of marketing so seductive that any other career would have seemed dull as a long, flat stretch of desert highway.<注13>

　　"I have a love for this business," she says. "I have an enormous amount of passion for it. Since I'm a mother and a wife, I have to have passion or the frustration would win out. But I love managing people. The product is second to managing the people. And marketing to consumers is so challenging because it is evolving constantly."

　　While elasticity spawns<注14> innovation, creativity and other qualities that generate exciting business, Jung believes routine promotes a successful home life. And like most corporate officers, she has learned to allot portions of the day to her family. Otherwise, she says, she would be swallowed by her career.

　　"The part that loses out at the end of the day is just doing things for myself," she says. "Sometimes when I go on a business trip, it's those five hours on the plane or that night in the hotel room which are the only moments when I have time for myself. Only then can I read magazines or a novel."