ESCP Europe Magazine - N°176 - Janvier/Février 2018 - Preview - 15

ALUMNI
50 à suivre en 2018
cities of the Netherlands and the UK.
It's a very large market for airlines at
the moment. A lot of people are flying between the two cities and obviously we want to offer an alternative
and grow the market between the
two countries. And for us it's the fi rst
time we go to a new country since we
started operating in 1994. So everybody is very excited, obviously the
customers and also the staff.
After Holland, we don't have other
plans to expand our network at the
moment but we are monitoring the
success of the Paris to Bordeaux line.

a cocktail bar inside, the original fi replaces are there but at the same time
it's very modern. I would say that it's
the flagship of the investments we're
making in Paris Nord. We've also
invested in passport automatic gates.
You get your passport controlled with
facial recognition so it's going much
faster. And we opened a new retail
in the main waiting area. It was a big
investment over the past 3 years and
the experience is now way better than
it used to be. It's all brand new and the
business lounge is really the flagship
of all that.

product. And then tourists don't really
care about Brexit, you just want to visit
a country, you want to enjoy it.
Regarding business travellers, at
the moment our business has never
been so good so I think in a way. A
few weeks ago, we organized for the
mayor of London a trade delegation of
technology scale ups to go to Paris, to
establish themselves there. They will
still be based in London, but if it works
in London it will work in Paris. Some
industries will suffer a bit others will
grow very strongly. Actually I'm not
very worried.

This year, you inaugurated
new trains, modernisation
of the fleet was a priority?

Do you fear some impact
from the political situation
with the Brexit?

When you look back at your
term, what makes you proud?

We started to deploy the new fleet last
year and we're nearly done now. The
customers love the new trains. They
offer more comfort, you have Wi-Fi
on board and they're able to go to
new destinations like Amsterdam. So
for us it's the future of our company.
We're very excited about what's going
on at Eurostar at the moment. It's been
a complete rebuild of Eurostar over

We don't see anything at the moment
in terms of impact. The business class
is very strong and on the leisure side
there will always be tourists. Actually
on Eurostar we've got many people,
who are travelling and they're not living in Europe. We're selling Eurostar
all over the world, especially in the US
but also Japan, China, as one of the
wonders of Europe. It's an amazing

"It's a great company. The future
is very bright for Eurostar"

I will be leaving Eurostar in February
and I'll be joining Siemens. I am obviously very excited about this new
opportunity but also a bit sad to leave
Eurostar.
I guess that what makes me proud is
the fact that we've managed to create
value by investing in quality, in customer experience and looking at the
customers the best way we could. It
proves that you can create value that
way. It's a great company and we
achieved so much. The future is very
bright for Eurostar.
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Propos recueillis par Arthur JEANNE

the past three years: the stations, the
fleet and also our digital capability.
We are just about to launch our new
app and our new website is complete
now. Our new loyalty program too.
We have completely rebuilt the whole
customer experience over the past
three years.

Speaking about customer
experience, you made some
changes in Gare du Nord?
We launched a new business lounge.
It's absolutely stunning. The customers love it. It's in the best part of the
station, which is a very beautiful station of the XIXth century. The concept
was to have the Parisian flat you've
always dreamt of. It's beautiful, there's

ESCP Europe Magazine numéro 176 ❙ JANVIER/FÉVRIER 2018

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Table des matières de la publication ESCP Europe Magazine - N°176 - Janvier/Février 2018 - Preview