PY Gerbeau

PY Gerbeau is a serial entrepreneur. He honed his business skills at Disneyland Paris but 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 and was affectionately nicknamed 'the gerbil' by the British press. Such is his energy that on a rare day off he won the Pro-Am in the Alfred Dunhill Cup at St Andrews.

PY moved on from his “corporate rescuer career to create a £600m property portfolio as Chief Executive of X-Leisure, the UK's fastest growing premier leisure brand with a portfolio of 16 exciting and innovative entertainment and leisure UK destinations, making it the largest leisure property group in the country.  The Xscape brand was the ultimate entertainment destination with the largest real snow slope in the UK, climbing walls, air parks and ice walls as well as a portfolio of other venues for  bowling, water parks, bars, restaurants, clubs, health and fitness, bingo, casinos, extreme sport retailers and coffee shops.   In 2013 he oversaw the sale of X-Leisure to Land Securities.

In his 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 popularity, 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, management 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.