The Board of Directors elected the new president of Unifrance on Friday July 7.
Gilles Pélisson was elected president of Unifrance for a three-year term. He succeeds Serge Toubiana, who is stepping down as president of Unifrance after three successive terms, and Hervé Michel, vice president of Unifrance since 2021 and previously president of TV France International since 2016.
Daniela Elstner and the entire Unifrance team would like to extend their warmest thanks to outgoing president and vice president Serge Toubiana and Hervé Michel for the work they accomplished during their two-year joint mandate: "Together with their teams, they have supported the new, unified Unifrance in a post-COVID context, in order to promote the full diversity of French creative work on the international stage."
Gilles Pélisson, the new president elected on July 7, is a graduate of ESSEC and Harvard Business School.
In 1995, he became general manager of Euro Disney, then CEO in 1997.
In September 2001, Gilles Pélisson joined Bouygues Telecom as general manager, then CEO in 2004.
In January 2006, he became general manager of the Accor Group and was appointed́ CEO in February 2009, a position he held until January 2011.
From 2012 to 2016, he was an independent director of the Barrière and TF1 Sun Resorts International groups, and senior advisor to the investment bank Jefferies Inc. in New York.
Director of Accenture PLC since 2012, he was appointed Lead Director in January 2019. He is also the president of Institut Lyfe (formerly Institut Paul Bocuse).
Director TF1 between 2009 and 2023, he was president and CEO of the group from February 2016 to February 2023.
Gilles Pélisson is an Officier des Arts et des Lettres, Chevalier de la Légion d'Honneur, de l'Ordre National du Mérite.
As a reminder, the steering committee that appoints Unifrance's president is made up of 60 members: the president, the vice president, 14 members by right (representatives of the main professional organizations), 4 statutory members (feature film producer and exporter commissions) and 40 elected members representing Unifrance's various commissions (feature film production, feature film exporters, short film producers, distributors and directors, artistic commission, audiovisual distributors, audiovisual producers).
Unifrance acknowledges the other candidates in this election: Frédérique Bredin, Anne Durupty, and Marie Masmonteil.
