The best advice I ever got

CEO, Luxottica

I am too young to talk about bad advice. But here are two pieces of good advice. The first is from Roger Abravanel, formerly of McKinsey, who is on the Luxottica board. He says that if you move into emerging markets such as China or India, you shouldn't listen to the people telling you to try franchising, licensing or joint ventures, but to go into the country directly and commit your management to getting involved. They're called emerging markets but one day they'll be important. We used that strategy for China two years ago and it's already paying off.

The second piece of good advice came from my first boss, when I was a young man starting out on my career. I was working at Marriott. He told me that in your first years of business life, you shouldn't go chasing after fancy titles, but try to find people who can teach you something.

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