She was married at 25 to a L’Oreal colleague, Antoine Chiquet, and had two daughters, Pauline and Mimi, now 24 and soon to be 21. As his wife’s career took off, Antoine took a step back and became the main caregiver at home. Ms. Chiquet was headhunted for Chanel in 2002. Though there were many rumors of friction between her and the designer Karl Lagerfeld, she remained largely behind the scenes of the notoriously private company, where the face of the brand was the designer.

“I spent so long in my career operating in a masculine frame, pushing so hard to be as good as the guy next to me,” Ms. Chiquet said. “We are trained in one direction, and your job becomes such a big part of your life, it spills over into your private life.”

It was, in fact, a corporate exercise in “active and conscious leadership” Ms. Chiquet introduced at Chanel that first got her reassessing her own choices and value system (and how she met Ms. Beasley, a consultant on the project). “I didn’t cry a lot for many years, because you can’t cry on the job,” Ms. Chiquet said. “It’s a sign of weakness. But when Antoine and I separated, I think I cried for three months straight. Now I cry much more. It’s like the floodgates of emotion are open.”

After she was fired from Chanel for what was publicly called “strategic difference,” she retreated to Purchase, in Westchester County north of New York City, turning down offers from new headhunters and private equity firms. “I hadn’t been in one place for more than three months at a time since I was about 25,” she said. “It was therapeutic to just land.” From 10 electronic devices, she went down to two.

These days, when Ms. Chiquet talks, her primary pronoun is “we,” meaning herself and Ms. Beasley; she rarely uses the word “I.” Asked about her typical day, she said, “We usually work out”; “We go into the office”; “We’ve been busy organizing.”