Gérard Pélisson (9 February 1932 – 6 March 2023) was a French hotelier and businessman who was the co-founder of the
Accor Group, and president of the Institut
Paul Bocuse
Paul François Pierre Bocuse (; 11 February 1926 – 20 January 2018) was a French chef based in Lyon known for the quality of his restaurants and his innovative approaches to cuisine. Dubbed "the pope of gastronomy", he was affectionately nick ...
.
Biography
Pelisson obtained his
engineering diploma from the
École Centrale Paris
École or Ecole may refer to:
* an elementary school in the French educational stages normally followed by Secondary education in France, secondary education establishments (collège and lycée)
* École (river), a tributary of the Seine flowing i ...
in 1955 and was a graduate of
MIT
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States. Established in 1861, MIT has played a significant role in the development of many areas of modern technology and sc ...
in
Boston
Boston is the capital and most populous city in the Commonwealth (U.S. state), Commonwealth of Massachusetts in the United States. The city serves as the cultural and Financial centre, financial center of New England, a region of the Northeas ...
.
In September 2008, he wrote, together with Paul Dubrule, the history of the adventure of Accor Group published in the Harmony of the Accor Group by Transversales Éditions. As one of the supporters of
Charles Millon, he was a Patron of the International School of Business and Development 3A in 1993.
Pelisson was president of the
Union des Français de l'Etranger from 1997–2023.
On 27 January 2011, he delivered a press conference concerning the reasons the Accor Group left
Tunisia
Tunisia, officially the Republic of Tunisia, is a country in the Maghreb region of North Africa. It is bordered by Algeria to the west and southwest, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Tunisia also shares m ...
3 years before. In his words, he mentioned "In Tunisia, we were forced, for example, to buy for 7 million euros a run-down hotel that was completely worthless, in order to allow the bank to list that sum as an asset. This is no longer possible".
On 6 March 2023, Pelisson died at the age of 91. Business executive and President of
TF1
TF1 (; standing for ''Télévision Française 1'') is a French commercial television network owned by TF1 Group, controlled by the Bouygues conglomerate. TF1's average market share of 24% makes it the most popular domestic network.
TF1 is part ...
Gilles Pélisson is his nephew.
Bibliography
Le Bonheur d'entreprendre, de
Novotel
Novotel is a French midscale hotel brand owned by Accor. Created in 1967 in France, the company grew into what became the Accor group in 1983, and Novotel remained a pillar brand of Accor's multi-brand strategy. Novotel manages 559 hotels in 65 ...
Ã
Accor
Accor S.A. is a French multinational hospitality company that owns, manages and franchises hotels, resorts and vacation properties. It is the largest hospitality company in Europe, and the sixth largest hospitality company worldwide.
Accor ope ...
(Undertaken Happiness): a great human adventure, Jean-Philippe Bozek, 2010 ed. (history of Gérard Pélisson and Accor Group written in the form of a fictionalized biography).
References
{{DEFAULTSORT:Pelisson, Gerard
1932 births
2023 deaths
Businesspeople from Lyon
École Centrale Paris alumni
Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni
Grand Officers of the Legion of Honour
Officers of the Ordre national du Mérite
French company founders