Pélisson was born on May 26, 1957 in France. He is the nephew of Gérard Pelisson, founder of the Accor Hotel Group. After graduation, he worked for Accor in Los Angeles. After various executive positions, he was appointed CEO & President of TF1 in October of 2015 and took up that position in February of 2016. Pélisson is married with two children.
Training
Gilles Pélisson is a graduate of ESSEC Business School in Paris and holds an MBA from the Harvard Business School,
Career
Pélisson’s first post after graduation was with the Accor group in Los Angeles. He then went on to work with Accor in the Asia-Pacific region. From 1998 to 1993, he served as the CEO of Accor’s Courtepaille restaurant chain before moving to become joint chairman of the Novotel hotel chain. In 1995, he was appointed as CEO of Euro Disney and in 1997, also appointed chairman. He moved away from the hospitality sector in 2000, taking up the position of Chairman at the Suez-Telefónica ST3G consortium then moving to Bouygues Telecom in June 2001 as CEO and then also as Chairman from 2004 to January of 2006.
In January 2006, he moved back to Accor as CEO and again added the post of chairman to his role. He remained at Accor until 2011. Between 2011 and 2015, he was an independent director of French hotel and casino group, Barriere, NH Hoteles in Spain, Sun Resorts International in Mauritius, Accenture in the USA, and TF1 in France. He also served as a Senior Advisor to Jefferies Investment Bank of New York.
He was appointed as Chairman and CEO of TF1 on 19th February, 2016.
Anecdotes
While at Euro Disney, Pélisson took part in the Disney parade dressed as Pluto.
