Stephanie Kramer was just a few years into her career when she landed at one of her dream companies: In 2007, she joined L’Oreal to manage global marketing efforts for Ralph Lauren’s fragrances division.
In the nearly 20 years since, Kramer, 43, has worked with iconic fragrance and skincare brands at L’Oreal, then Chanel, and now back at L’Oreal with a recent career change to become the chief HR officer for the company’s North America operations.
She says some of the best career advice she’s gotten came from ex-boss Maureen Chiquet, the former Chanel CEO, who gave her a three-question framework to figure out if she was ready for a new job or career change.
“I often ask people three questions when you’re making a career decision,” Kramer tells CNBC Make It:
- What do you want to learn or what do you want to teach?
- Where do you get your energy?
- What do you need for your life right now?
Kramer was working as a global marketing director at L’Oreal in 2011, fresh off earning a master’s degree from the Fashion Institute of Technology and curious about taking her career in a new direction, when the opportunity to work for Chanel came up.
Kramer says she was drawn to how it represented something different — a private company, a luxury brand and a company with categories beyond beauty.
“It was something new to learn,” Kramer says. Meanwhile, having worked on the Ralph Lauren fragrance business, she felt she could bring that knowledge to working on Chanel’s fragrances including Chanel No. 5 and Coco Mademoiselle. This gave her something she could teach while in a new role, she says.
As far as what energized her, Kramer says she was eager to try something she hadn’t done before, with new colleagues, and in a different environment.
Finally, Kramer says she had to take stock of her personal life. At the time, she had just graduated with her master’s, she was getting married, “and I think that sometimes in those mega-life moments, you also think about how you want to stretch professionally,” she says.
Kramer recommends using this framework when looking for a new job and narrowing what opportunities you want to pursue. She also says it can be used to evaluate the job you’re already in when paired with a “traffic light” method.
“When you’re feeling stuck, or at a ‘red light,’ ask these questions to help you get unstuck with a clearer head and better sense of what you want” in your current role or with your employer, she says.
When a career change means boomeranging back to an old company
Kramer spent nearly five years at Chanel, first as a director of fragrance marketing and later as an executive director of skin-care marketing.
In 2016, she says she had yet another moment of wanting something different and revisited her three-question approach.
A role opened up back at L’Oreal and offered Kramer the chance to return to working on a global scale for a business — something she missed when she left to work for Chanel.
It was an opportunity to work with new markets leading global marketing for Kiehl’s.
“I was able to work a lot with our our teams that were in South Korea, that were in China, that were in travel retail in Asia,” Kramer says. “So there was this big acceleration at Kiehl’s I got to be part of, and it expanded me and got me closer to the consumer in a different way, and I loved it.”
And on a personal level, Kramer says it was a good time to return to a former employer she loved: She had just given birth to her first son and was ready for something different professionally but with a company where she felt supported.
“Now at L’Oreal I’ve gotten to take it in a totally another direction,” Kramer says of her transition into HR, “which has also been cool and actually happened after I had my second son.”
Want to give your kids the ultimate advantage? You teach them to read and ride a bike, but often skip money management. Sign up for our new course, How to Raise Financially Smart Kids, and learn how to build healthy financial habits and prepare them for real-world milestones. Use coupon code EARLYBIRD for 30% off. Offer valid from Dec. 8-22, 2025. Terms apply.
