Who is Sebastien BAZIN ?

Sebastien Bazin is a French businessman. He is the chairman and chief executive officer of AccorHotels, he is also the former CEO of Colony Capital Europe.

Sebastien Bazin studied at Saint-Jean de Passy, then he joined the Pantheon-Sorbonne University where he obtained a degree in economics in 1984 and a master's degree in management, finance option in 1985.
During his military service, he served as a firefighter in Paris.

Sebastien Bazin began his career in finance in 1985 in the United States. He joined the Frates group, a small investment fund as a junior analyst. Then he went to work for the wealthy Franco-British aristocrat : Alan Clore. He then sats on the executive committee of the Californian industrial giant : Kaiser Aluminum, on which Clore has staked a large part of his fortune. Two years later, the stock market crash of 1987 put Clore investment in Kaiser Aluminium in a complicated financial situation, Bezin has a plan to negotiate with the creditors to save the company. However, Alan Clore was a strong homebody and never accepted to come in San Francisco to help Bazin convince the creditors.
He then went to work for the PaineWebber groups in London and in 1990, Sebastien Bazin come back in Paris and is recruited by Jean-Philippe Hottinguer, a partner at Banque Rivaud, to head the investment banking division. During his time in investment banking, he will established valuable relashionship, in particular with Matthieu Pigasse (Managing Partner of CenterView and former Managing Partner of Lazard-France), Jean Raby (n ° 2 of Goldman Sachs-France), Nicolas Durand (managing director of Banque Rothschild) and Patrick Sayer (head of the Eurazeo investment fund).

In 1992, Sebastien Bazin joined as a Director of Development L’Immobilière Hôtelière, a french company specialized in the hotel development and management, with a focus on high-end hotel.

In 1997, he moved to Colony Capital, a private real estate investment firm, to head up its European branch and lead several acquisitions, principally in the hospitality sector (Générale des Eaux, Club Méditerranée, Lucien Barrière, Fairmont & Raffles, Buffalo Grill, Château Lascombes, Stadia Consulting and others).
He also made Colony Capital invest in Accor, he was appointed to Accor's Board of Directors in 2006. The same year he also lead the Colony Capital investment of the Paris Saint-Germain (Paris Football Club), he became Chairman of the club in 2009.

In 2013, Accor was looking for a new CEO and Sebastien Bazin was looking for a new challenge, he wanted to be more than a shareholder, to be more in the operational and the strategy side of a business. With 7 years on the board of Accor, he already knew the company and the main shareholders, he also had a strong track-record of prolific investments in hospitality at Colony Capital, all thoses arguments convinced the board to offer him the Job.
In august 2013, he resigned from his job of CEO of Colony Capital Europe and was appointed Chairman and CEO of Accor.

Sébastien has been Chairman of the Théâtre du Châtelet’s Board of Directors since 2015 (and a Board member since 2013), is Vice-Chairman of the Gustave Roussy Foundation’s Supervisory Board, and has been a member of GE’s Board of Directors since 2016.