Guillaume Penot is a Non-Executive Director on the International Board of DLA Piper, one of the largest global law firms. He is also the Non-Executive Chairman, advisor and investor of Xceed, a start-up company based in Barcelona. He is currently building a portfolio of Board positions in large international businesses, as well as Advisor to VC-backed start-up firms.
Until December 2017, and for the prior 5 years, Guillaume was President for Europe of Moët Hennessy, the wines and spirits division of LVMH. The business employs more than 6,000 people worldwide and has a turnover of over €5 billion.
After attending Ecole Supérieure de Commerce in Bordeaux and gaining a Masters in Finance and International Business, Guillaume began his career in finance, joining drinks company Rémy Martin, before studying at INSEAD on the MBA programme.
He subsequently re-joined Rémy-Cointreau as Deputy Director of Development at their HQ in Paris and shortly thereafter was appointed as CFO for the Americas, moving to New York for five years, until re-locating to Sydney as Managing Director for Australia.
After attending the Advanced Management Programme at Harvard Business School, Guillaume then joined drinks distribution company Maxxium in Hong Kong where he spent 3 years as Asia-Pacific Managing Director; his role expanded in the following 3 years to include Southern Europe, Global Travel Retail and Latin America, based in Amsterdam.
In 2005, he joined Moët Hennessy as Director of Strategy & Development, in charge of strategic planning and M&A; he became Managing Director for Western Europe in 2009 and, in 2012, was appointed President for Europe, based in London, with full responsibility for driving the strategy in greater Europe and the operations of Moët Hennessy in more than 50 countries.
Guillaume’s very strong experience in developing business internationally (having lived and worked on all continents), his expertise in building up the value of brands, his strong people, leadership and management skills and his corporate/strategy/finance background give him some very useful tools in the Boardroom. His work with start-up firms as a mentor/advisor and business angel, also fulfils his interest for new technologies and how they change traditional business models, as well as his love of very entrepreneurial projects.
Guillaume is now based in Paris, has three children and loves practicing sports, especially marathon, kite-surfing, skiing and sailing