Guillaume Pepy (born 26 May 1958) is a high-ranking French civil servant who currently serves as president of the SNCF, the French national rail authority. He is also Chairman of

Eurostar Eurostar is an international high-speed rail service connecting the United Kingdom with France, Belgium and the Netherlands. Most Eurostar trains travel through the Channel Tunnel between the United Kingdom and France, owned and operate ...

and Deputy-Chairman of the

Keolis Keolis is a multinational transportation company that operates public transport systems. The company manages bus, rapid transit, tram, coach networks, rental bikes, car parks, water taxi, cable car, trolleybus and funicular services. ...

Group.

President President most commonly refers to: *President (corporate title) * President (education), a leader of a college or university * President (government title) President may also refer to: Automobiles * Nissan President, a 1966–2010 Japanese ...

Nicolas Sarkozy appointed Pepy to run the state-owned enterprise on 27 February 2008 for a term of five years. In his Letter of Engagement, the Head of State asked him to make the development and modernisation of the enterprise the priorities of his mandate and that SNCF should ''enter, body and soul, into the era of development and competition''. He was re-appointed for a new term by François Hollande in 2013.

Career at SNCF

Pepy joined SNCF for the first time in 1988 as Chief of Staff to the then Chairman, Jacques Fournier. After a stint in various ministerial private offices (1990–1993), he came back as Head of Investment, Economy and Strategy. In 1997, he was put in charge of Mainline Services and in 1998, became Deputy Chief Executive Officer with responsibility for all passenger activities (TER regional, Transilien Greater Paris suburban services, mainline services, rolling stock and operations). He instituted a new low fares policy designed to boost train occupancy rates using "yield management" flexible pricing techniques. He was also the driving force behind the creation of Voyages-sncf.com, of which he was Chairman from 1998 to 2006, and of

iDTGV iDTGV was a wholly owned subsidiary of the French state-owned train company SNCF, operating high-speed TGV services on multiple Lignes à Grande Vitesse, LGV lines throughout France. All trains run either to or from Paris, serving 12 French stati ...

. In 2003,

Louis Gallois Louis René Fernand Gallois (, born 26 January 1944) is a French businessman. He was the CEO of EADS, the European aeronautic defense and space company, from 2007 to 2012. Education Gallois was raised in Montauban, where he received his Baccalaur ...

appointed him Group Chief Operating Officer.

Anne-Marie Idrac Anne-Marie Idrac (born 27 July 1951 in Saint-Brieuc, Côtes-d'Armor) is a French politician of the Nouveau Centre political party who served as French Minister of State for foreign trade. Early life and education Idrac is an alumna of the Inst ...

, Chairman in the last 20 months of the term begun by

(July 2006- February 2008), confirmed him in this position. He was also the prime mover in the launch of the

Railteam Railteam B.V. is a closed company with limited liability ( B.V.) based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands. It operates as an alliance of European railway companies in the field of international high-speed rail in Europe, modelled on the airline allia ...

European high-speed rail operator alliance.

Educational background

Pepy attended the École alsacienne high school in Paris. He is a graduate of Sciences Po and a former alumnus of

École nationale d'administration The École nationale d'administration (generally referred to as ENA, en, National School of Administration) was a French ''grande école'', created in 1945 by President Charles de Gaulle and principal author of the 1958 Constitution Michel Deb ...

, in the Louise Michel year (1984). An Auditor and then Master of Requests at the Conseil d'État ("Council of State", the highest French Administrative Court - 1987), Pepy worked in a number of ministerial private offices, was a technical advisor to Budget Minister Michel Charasse (1988), and Chief of Staff for the Minister for Public Service Michel Durafour and the Minister of Labour

Martine Aubry Martine Louise Marie Aubry (; née Delors; born 8 August 1950) is a French politician. She was the First Secretary of the French Socialist Party (''Parti Socialiste'', or PS) from November 2008 to April 2012, and has been the Mayor (France), Mayo ...

. In 1995, he was appointed Deputy Chief Executive Officer of the Sofres group with special responsibility for business development.

Other activities

* Emlyon Business School, Chairman of the supervisory board (since 2022) *

Salesforce Salesforce, Inc. is an American cloud-based software company headquartered in San Francisco, California. It provides customer relationship management (CRM) software and applications focused on sales, customer service, marketing automation, a ...

, Member of the Advisory Board on Europe, the Middle East and Africa (since 2020) *

Lagardère Group Lagardère S.A. () is an international group with operations in over 40 countries. It is headquartered in the 16th arrondissement of Paris. The group was created in 1992 as Matra, Hachette & Lagardère. Headed by Arnaud Lagardère, it is focused ...

, Member of the Supervisory Board (since 2020) *

Suez Suez ( ar, السويس '; ) is a seaport city (population of about 750,000 ) in north-eastern Egypt, located on the north coast of the Gulf of Suez (a branch of the Red Sea), near the southern terminus of the Suez Canal, having the same bou ...

, Member of the Board of Directors (since 2008) *

SYSTRA SYSTRA is a multinational engineering and consulting group in the mobility sector, whose fields of activity include rail and public transport. In 2019, it employed a staff of about 7,300 people, and is a limited company which shareholders includ ...

, Member of the Supervisory Board *

, Member of the Board of Directors (2002-2009) *

, Member of the Board of Directors (-2009)

Personal life

From 1986 until 2004, Pepy shared a relationship with

Richard Descoings Richard Descoings (; June 23, 1958 – April 3, 2012) was a French civil servant. He was serving as the Director of the Paris Institute of Political Studies (French: ''Institut d'études politiques de Paris'' or Sciences Po Paris), and as such ...

. Due to fear of stigma, their relationship was kept secret until it was acknowledged at Descoing's funeral in 2012.Raphaëlle Bacqué, ''Richie'', Paris, éditions Grasset 2015

Notes

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pepy, Guillaume 1958 births Living people Sciences Po alumni École nationale d'administration alumni SNCF people Members of the Conseil d'État (France) French rail transport chief executives French chief executives People from Neuilly-sur-Seine Officiers of the Légion d'honneur French LGBT businesspeople