ESSEC Appointments: 4 CEOs, Next Women 40, Choiseul Africa & Sport, Who’s Who…

Major business leaders in France and overseas, directors of ESSEC chairs and a shower of accolades from the Legion of Honour and Order of Merit to Who’s Who, Next Women 40, and the Choiseul Africa and Sports Business rankings! Our round-up of recent appointments within the ESSEC network. 

Lamia Merzouki (E98) has been elected President of the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC), a role which adds to her current positions of Deputy CEO of Casablanca Finance City Authority (CFCA) and President of UNDP-Financial Centers For Sustainability Network (FC4S). Also a graduate of Harvard Business School, she began her career with Arthur Andersen in Paris. She then worked on the Green Morocco Plan for the Ministry for Agriculture and on the Souss Massa Draa regional development strategy. She was next appointed Director of Strategy & Organisation at AKWA Group, Morocco’s leading private group encompassing some 50 companies.  

Benjamin Vuchot (BBA 95) has been appointed Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of The Hongkong and Shanghai Hotels Limited, Asia’s oldest hotel group and operator of a dozen luxury establishments worldwide under The Peninsula Hotels brand. He began his career in sales & marketing with Cartier in Hong Kong and Singapore before becoming their Communication Director for the Far East. He then held the successive roles of Asia-Pacific Managing Director and CEO for Van Cleef & Arpels, North Asia & Hong Kong Managing Director and CEO for the DFS group (LVMH’s duty free retail subsidiary) and Asia-Pacific CEO of Sephora. He returned to DFS, this time as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.  

Guillaume Amar (EXEC PROG 10) has been appointed Managing Director France of Atalian, a group specialised in subcontracting facility management services for airports, welcome desks, cleaning, maintenance, power and security, with 45,000 employees and a turnover of €1.4 billion. He began his career as a head of regional operations at ISS France, an expert in hygiene and cleaning services, where he rose to the position of director of the hotel division. He was then made Head of Development at Les Repas Parisiens, the mass catering subsidiary of Elior. He next moved to the business services company, Armonia, where he has spent the last 20 years, in the successive roles of Director of Customer Operations, Deputy Managing Director and CEO.  

Séverine Lemoine (M01) has been appointed CEO of Moderna France, a pharmaceutical laboratory specialised in messenger RNA. She began her career in product marketing with AstraZeneca, followed by Novartis, before holding various managerial positions in the oncology units at Roche. She was then appointed Managing Director of Seagen, another player in oncology treatment. 

Delphine Chastan (EXEC PROG 08) has been appointed CEO of GBNA Santé, the medicine-surgery-obstetrics sector leader in France’s Gironde department and the Nouvelle-Aquitaine region, with 12 establishments and 700 practitioners for 2,150 beds and places. She has held high-ranking positions in this sector for 15 years, including Director of Clinics with Vitalia, Hospital Director for Groupe SOS and regional Managing Director for the Vivalto Santé group. 

Olivier Falut (E96) has been appointed Chief Financial Officer of Euroapi, the world leader in active pharmaceutical ingredients, with a portfolio of 200 products, 6 production plants and customers in 80 countries. He began his career as a financial auditor, mainly with Ernst & Young in France, and then the USA. He continued in accounting, initially as a manager with Bosch France, prior to being appointed a director of Groupe Bel. He then held the successive roles of Financial Director of a division of Oberthur Technologies, Head of Financial Control at Lactalis, and Financial Director of Sodiaal, Segula Technologies, Limagrain and Fareva. 

Louis-Romain Riché (E11) has been appointed litigation partner at Herald. A lawyer at the Paris Bar, he began his career with Winston & Strawn, before joining UGGC Avocats, where he rose to the position of counsel. In his 10 years in this role, he developed renowned expertise in unfair competition, corporate breach of contract and fraud, succession and international trust litigation for major French fortunes, as well as in M&A and private equity for investment funds. He was Secretary of the Conférence du Stage [French barristers’ debating competition] in 2015, a French Naval reservist, Lieutenant Commander in the French military reserve, and was exceptionally awarded the National Defence Medal. 

Alexandre Yvoz (EXEC PROG 16) has been appointed Secretary General of Banque Populaire du Nord. He began his career as a project manager for professionals and businesses with Crédit Agricole, before joining Banque Populaire du Nord as branch manager in charge of companies in the Tourcoing area. He was next appointed manager of the business centre for major companies and real estate. Prior to this most recent appointment, he was at the helm of JPM Banque Privée. 

Christophe Brulliard (E92) has been appointed Climate Change Director of Future Fund, the Australia sovereign fund overseeing $250 billion of investments. He began his career in auditing with Deloitte, followed by risk management with Crédit Lyonnais, before moving to Melbourne, where he switched to the field of sustainable development. Initially an economist specialised in natural resource management with the engineering & building company URS, he went on to successively become Deputy Director for climate change adaptation with the consultancy Net Balance; carbon reduction, natural capital and social capital consultant for Point Advisory, and Chief Sustainability Officer of the asset management platform Pathzero. 

Jean-Noël Tronc (E93) has been appointed Executive Director of the ESSEC Media & Digital Chair. He has held various managerial roles in the technology sector with Accenture and Orange; in media with Canal Plus, where he developed the international French-language offer, specifically in Africa, Poland and Vietnam; and in the culture sector, leading the transformation of SACEM for ten years. He has also worked for the European Parliament, the State Planning Commission and as advisor to French Prime Minister Lionel Jospin, for whom he oversaw the implementation of the governmental action plan for the information society, with the development of digital technology in education as the first priority. He was a member of the Scientific Committee for School Education, presided by Edgard Morin, and Vice-President of the expert committee responsible for examining applications to the E-Education call for projects, launched as part of the French National Fund for the Digital Society (FSN). The son of a schoolteacher, he has taught at Sciences Po, HEC and ENA, and prior to this most recent appointment was Managing Director of the CNED. 

Franck Pétel (EXEC PROG 03) has been appointed Dean of ESSEC’s Specialised Master’s in Urban & Real Estate Management, while retaining his role as tenured professor with the Real Estate & Sustainable Development Chair. He began his career in sales management, handling automotive customers for Lafarge Peintures and then Thyssenkrupp, prior to his appointment as CEO and Financial & Administrative Director of the French subsidiary of the Lindner Group, a specialist in interior fit-out. He then took over the management of the Ile-de-France agency of Matfor and Somete, subsidiaries of Saphyr Group, the specialist in office and commercial premises fit-out. He moved gradually into the academic sphere, initially with Sciences Po, followed by Neoma Business School.  

Mimsy Daly (E99) has been awarded the Legion of Honour for her accomplishments in her native New Caledonia. Having held managerial positions in the agro-food sector, she currently runs a furniture distribution company and presides over the local branch of the French Employers’ Federation, MEDEF. ‘This honour is not a culmination, rather an encouragement to pursue the relentless effort for the economic and social revival of our island.’  

Emmanuelle Duez (E12) has been awarded the National Order of Merit for both her entrepreneurial achievements - she founded The Boson Project to shape the future of work and transform the companies of today, Maisons Boson to welcome unique identities, and Bugali to nurture children’s interest in reading - and her commitments to causes in support of young people through Youth Forever, gender equality with Women’Up and Earthship Sisters, and to the State, notably as a French Navy reservist. ‘I take this honour literally: the impetus of a commitment to be stepped up, to justify the merit of the next 30 years.’  

Cécile Béliot-Zind (E97) features among the Next Women 40, a new ranking by Les Échos, BFM Business and the NGO Actives, showcasing women set to run a CAC 40-listed company in the near future. Following more than 15 years with Danone, where she rose to the position of Deputy Managing Director in charge of strategy, markets & growth, she is currently at the helm of Groupe Bel, the company behind the iconic brands The Laughing Cow, Babybel, Apericube, Boursin, Pom’Potes and Mont-Blanc, with 11,800 employees in more than 120 countries.  

5 alumni feature in the Choiseul Africa 2024 ranking which showcases 200 leaders under 40 set to play a key role in the development of the African continent: Bahiya Hanoun (E09), Director of Operations at Mohammed VI Polytechnic University; Kenza Lahlou (M12), co-founder of Outlierz Ventures, a capital risk investment fund based in Morocco and devoted to African start-ups at the Seed and Pre-Series A stage; Seynabou Dieng (EXEC M18), who having previously founded Maya, a condiment brand and social business which supports farm production and employment for women in Mali, is currently a consultant for UNOPS, the UN body which provides infrastructure, procurement and project management services to build a more sustainable world; Elhadji Mamadou Seck (EXEC M19), Managing Director of the Senegalese subsidiary of the Vicat Group, a cement manufacturer operating in 11 countries with more than 7,000 employees, and Mohamed Touré (M12) General Manager for West Africa at Sqorus, the Ivory Coast-based digital services consultancy.  

3 alumni feature in the Choiseul Sports Business 2024 ranking which showcases 100 leaders under 40 set to play a decisive role in sports sector: Arthur Bernard (E08), founder of Athletico Ventures, an investment consultancy based in the UK and specialised in high-level athletes’ asset strategy; Aymeric Labaste (BBA 14), Director of Roland-Garros International Development at the French Tennis Federation (FFT), and Talia Lipiec (E12), co-founder of FizYou, a health application which draws on the expertise of high-level sports medicine to prevent musculoskeletal disorders, the primary cause of occupational illness in France.  

Sue Nabi (M92) features among the 2024 ranking of Women in Culture, in the Creative Arts & Know-How category. She worked for L’Oréal for almost 20 years, rising to the position of CEO of L’Oréal Paris and Lancôme. She then went on to found her own brand of gender-neutral cosmetics, Orveda, before being appointed Chief Executive Officer of Coty.  

Cécilia Gabizon (E92) has entered the Who’s Who listing. This honour recognises her outstanding career, which began as a journalist for Libération, France Télévisions and France Culture. She was then appointed editor-in-chief of the digital version of Madame Figaro, and co-founded the Media Maker incubator with ESSEC’s Media & Digital Chair. She is currently at the helm of School Media Maker and is Vice-President of the ETX Majelan group, which works alongside AFP and La Tribune du Dimanche in particular. ‘I’m honoured to join this circle of people who have made an outstanding contribution to society, a circle which welcomes just 500 newcomers annually. My aim in recent years has been to help the media embrace this age, with its chaos and vast opportunities, and thus contribute to shaping a positive movement for France.’ 

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