PY Gerbeau is a serial entrepreneur. After accomplishing nine successful turnarounds he created a £600m property portfolio as CEO of X-Leisure, before overseeing the sale to Land Securities in 2013.
PY serves as Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College. Having honed his skills at Disneyland Paris, PY famously became Chief Executive of the Dome in February 2000. He achieved a great deal with the much-maligned government-built attraction, generating over six million visitors. Such is his energy that on a rare day off he won the Pro-Am in the Alfred Dunhill Cup at St Andrews.
In presentations, PY explains how the prevailing economic climate requires each and every tier of management to be agile, accountable and better at balancing risk. Decisions must be firm and consistent not based on a popularity contest. And at a time when even established brands can be destroyed in an instant, managers must ensure that the organisation’s values are understood and upheld by everyone. Above all, they should lead by example.
Outside the boardroom, PY is a scratch golfer and a former Captain of the French Olympic Ice Hockey team. He has been voted Personality of the Year by his leisure industry peers, holds an MBA from one of France’s leading business schools and frequently appears in the media as one of the most famous Frenchmen to have chosen to live in London.
