Eurostar Group appoints Cazenave as new CEO

European high-speed rail operator Eurostar Group has appointed rail business veteran Gwendoline Cazenave as its new CEO from 1 October.

Cazenave, who has 20 years of expertise within the rail business, will succeed Jacques Damas, who has been CEO of Eurostar since October 2020. 

She is going to take over the group because it completes the merger between the Eurostar and Thalys high-speed prepare operators, which was cleared by the European Commission earlier this year.

France’s state-owned rail firm SNCF owns a controlling shareholding in each Eurostar and Thalys, with the manufacturers set to be merged beneath the Eurostar identify.

The corporate stated that Cazenave, who has beforehand held govt roles at SNCF, would carry “appreciable experience, power and imaginative and prescient to make Eurostar Group and European high-speed rail successful for purchasers and colleagues”.

Christophe Fanichet, CEO of SNCF Voyageurs, and Alain Krakovitch, chairman of Eurostar Group’s board, stated in a joint assertion: “We have now full confidence in Gwendoline Cazenave to guide the enterprise, persevering with the optimistic journey of restoration put in place by Jacques Damas.

“Together with her sturdy expertise, Cazenave will proceed to efficiently carry collectively Eurostar and Thalys, selling the event of rail transport in Europe and making a enterprise which is able to meet the rising demand for sustainable mobility.”

SNCF has ambitions for the enlarged Eurostar Group to hold 30 million passengers yearly inside 10 years beneath the only Eurostar model, which would be the largest worldwide high-speed community in western Europe.

Throughout the previous two years, Cazenave has been a companion at administration consultancy Oliver Wyman, the place she specialised within the French and European transport and companies markets.