Pierre-Yves Gerbeau
A failing asset arrives with the brand already broken, the press already hostile, and the workforce already demoralised. The leader has weeks, not quarters, to stabilise operations and rebuild commercial credibility before the writedown becomes terminal. Most executives have never operated under that combination of public scrutiny, political stakeholders and live customer flow.
Pierre-Yves Gerbeau is the entrepreneur who took over the Millennium Dome mid-crisis and helps boards run turnarounds when the asset, the brand and the public mood are all moving against them.
Full Profile
Why organisations work with Pierre-Yves Gerbeau
- A first-hand operating account of one of the most public corporate rescues in modern British memory, told by the executive who took the role on day one of the crisis.
- A career built inside live consumer assets at scale, from Disneyland Paris park operations through the X-Leisure portfolio he grew from roughly 70 million pounds to more than 1.3 billion pounds before the sale to Land Securities.
- Practical content for boards facing a hostile press cycle, a sceptical workforce and demanding political stakeholders at the same time, drawn from the Dome and the London Resort theme park CEO seat.
- A teaching practitioner, lecturing on the London Business School MBA programme and as Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College, so the operating stories carry an analytical frame.
Biography highlights
- Chief Executive of the New Millennium Experience Company from February 2000, with the Millennium Dome reaching more than six million visitors during its year of operation.
- Vice-President of Park Operations and Attractions at Euro Disney, with operational ownership of ticketing, safety, maintenance and queue management.
- Co-founder and Chief Executive of X-Leisure, operator of the Xscape centres, sold to Land Securities after a decade of growth.
- Chief Executive of London Resort Company Holdings, June 2019 to December 2022, leading the Paramount IP licensing arrangement for the proposed Kent resort.
- President of the French Ice Hockey Federation, appointed October 2021 and re-elected in 2022.
- Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College, lecturer on the London Business School MBA programme, MBA from Sciences Po.
Biography
The Millennium Dome in January 2000 was the most publicly mocked asset in Britain. Tony Blair’s flagship project had opened to negative press, queues that did not move and visitor numbers well below plan. On 5 February that year Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, recommended by Disney CEO Michael Eisner, took over as Chief Executive of the New Millennium Experience Company. The Dome went on to attract more than six million visitors before its scheduled close.
The Dome story is the headline, but the operating CV underneath it is what makes the perspective unusual on a stage. Gerbeau ran park operations at Disneyland Paris through its difficult early years, with direct responsibility for the unglamorous mechanics of a theme park: ticketing, safety, maintenance, queue flow. He then built X-Leisure, the platform behind the Xscape indoor ski and entertainment centres, growing it from roughly 70 million pounds of assets under management in 2003 to more than 1.3 billion pounds by 2007, and eventually selling to Land Securities.
Subsequent roles have kept him close to the same set of problems. As CEO of London Resort Company Holdings from 2019 to 2022, he led negotiations for the Paramount IP deal that anchored the proposed Kent theme park before resigning in December 2022. In 2021 he was elected President of the French Ice Hockey Federation, a return to the sport in which he competed professionally before an ankle injury ended his playing career.
The teaching work sits alongside the operating one. Gerbeau lectures on the London Business School MBA programme and is Visiting Professor of Entrepreneurship and Corporate Rescue at Imperial College, holding an MBA from Sciences Po. The argument he carries into a senior boardroom is built from the seat: turnaround is an operating discipline executed under public pressure, not a slide deck about resilience.
Key speaking topics
- Corporate turnaround and rescue
- Transformational leadership under public scrutiny
- Change management in consumer-facing assets
- Entrepreneurial discipline at scale
- Customer experience in live-operations businesses
- Risk management and crisis response
- Stakeholder management with political and media exposure
Ideal for
- Boards and executive committees inheriting a publicly criticised asset, brand or programme
- Operating leaders running large customer-facing platforms in leisure, retail, hospitality and travel
- CEOs and transformation directors managing a turnaround under regulatory or political stakeholder pressure
- Senior teams in scale-up businesses moving from founder energy to institutional operating discipline
Audience outcomes
- A working model of how an incoming CEO sequences the first weeks of a public-asset turnaround
- A clear view of where operating discipline and brand recovery interact, drawn from the Dome and X-Leisure
- A sharper read on managing political, media and workforce stakeholders simultaneously
- Reusable lessons on building and selling a leisure property platform at scale
- Confidence to make unpopular operating calls when values and commercial reality both demand them