Your career has taken you from Unilever to Disney, then to luxury hospitality. What key lessons do you draw from this regarding the customer experience ?

I deliberately worked across very different yet highly complementary sectors to acquire 360° skills at both a strategic and an operational level. At Unilever, I discovered rigor and the importance of consumer insights. Moving from Disney to Disneyland Paris, I wanted to gain the retail dimension I was lacking: how to promote products in-store or online, and understand what happens the moment a customer truly encounters the product or the brand in order to optimize the buying experience?

Hospitality, much like theme parks, subsequently confronted me with another complexity: the multiplicity of touchpoints. A stay includes the rides, the characters, the shops, but also—if you stay at the hotel—the welcome, check-in, the room, breakfast, interactions with staff… A tiny detail can then ruin an otherwise successful stay.

Above all, these experiences taught me that it is very difficult to understand customers' true motivations and that you must go beyond what they spontaneously express.
Customers generally know quite well what they don't want, but less precisely what they actually expect.

In hospitality, they tell you they want to sleep well and enjoy a seamless journey. But once you have a good bed, what do you do? What will really make the difference? You have to dig into motivations, observe behaviors, look at where customers spend time, where the pain points are…

And above all, you have to prioritize. You will never be able to do everything. In my view, the art of leadership is the art of making choices. Which insights are the most important? Which ones are relevant to your brand? Where should you invest to make a real impact? How do you stand out from your competitors ? The choice of insights to consider depends on your brand's DNA.

This is also why I am cautious about the accumulation of data facilitated by AI. It provides access to a massive amount of information, but this abundance does not constitute a diagnosis, and this information is not necessarily relevant to your own customers; you need to know how to sort through it.

You place a strong emphasis on the importance of surprising customers. How do you create surprise ?

A moment that goes "well," if it has only met the customer's basic expectations, is not enough to make it an unforgettable experience.  That is why I believe you need to create an added difference.

Today, in a four-star hotel for instance, people expect good bedding and a varied breakfast. What can make the difference is the presentation of the buffet, an exceptional homemade marmalade, an unexpected gesture, a distinctive scent…
I remember a charming boutique hotel in Bordeaux where the sheets had an extraordinary fragrance of orange blossom and lavender, completely consistent with the spirit of the place. Two years later, I still remember it!

What makes the difference is what I call the "positive accident": that unexpected touch that turns a satisfactory experience into a memorable souvenir.
For it to take on its full meaning, you must have understood your customers and then prioritized what aligns with the strategic intent of the brand or the venue. The very same customer gesture will not resonate the same way depending on the intended positioning. Furthermore,
it is essential to empower operational teams to deliver them; you have to get frontline teams on board, take their feedback, and constantly strive for improvement—it is a continuous, iterative process.

At Disneyland Paris, you experienced particularly vivid examples of this challenge of combining strategic vision with frontline reality. Can you tell us about them ?

Yes, this is a project that left a deep impression on me because it fully embodied the brand's customer-centric culture and was carried out by the entire operations team ahead of the 25th anniversary.

We were actively brainstorming ways to improve the experience, in a context where the park had been underinvested for several years, with all the consequences that entailed: fewer characters, long waits at aging attractions, wear and tear…

At Disneyland Paris, visitors—the "guests"—primarily come for the characters and the attractions, and at the time they complained about not seeing enough of them. We started from this observation, applied our knowledge of customer journeys and high-traffic areas to ensure visitors could meet their favorite characters along their visit path by indicating schedules and locations in advance, and of course, we also added more characters. Knowing the meeting spots in advance allowed "guests" to plan their visit around these encounters, which helped boost their satisfaction rates.

We also aligned external and internal engagement objectives through a deeply people-centric operation (customers and employees alike).

At the time, our employees—the "cast members"—explained that they sometimes witnessed situations that ruined a visitor's day without being able to intervene: a child spilled their freshly bought Coca-Cola, another lost their balloon. Parents got upset, the child cried, and the cast member felt powerless…

We created a very simple system called "Touch of Magic": a booklet of paper vouchers enabling employees to offer a replacement or compensation suited to the situation: a new drink, a balloon, a plush toy…

The project sparked a lot of discussion: would the teams misuse it? How would we control costs ? In reality, employees used it with great discretion and, above all, we achieved a dual benefit: turning negative incidents into positive moments for visitors, while giving employees back autonomy, recognition, and pride, all while tangibly bringing Disney magic to life !

It's a wonderful example of the symmetry of attention. And what's interesting is that the initial insight was extremely simple, and bringing this solution to fruition required working with all the departments across the company: from executive management to operations, including HR and finance.

I can think of another example of customer centricity, this time toward internal teams. My teams, spread across multiple sites, felt distant from senior management and lacked recognition. To address this, I organized "breakfasts with management" twice a year for each team. This built proximity with teams far removed from the Executive Committee, fostered connection and opportunities for dialogue, and helped surface feedback from the field. In the end, it brought the teams much closer together.

You show that customer centricity is a wonderful way to set a company in motion. So what prevents organizations from moving from customer knowledge to action like this?

Silos, very often. You can have a fantastic brand platform and very sleek presentations, but if operational teams are not involved, not much happens.

At the Société des Bains de Mer, for example, I worked closely with hotel general managers to share strategic directions, gather their feedback, and adapt our action plans. It wasn't simply about presenting them with a strategy that had already been decided, but building it with them.

You have to be open to questioning certain decisions.

Ultimately, what are the conditions for a true customer-centric culture?

First, it's maintaining that capacity to listen, a clear vision, and choices aligned with the brand's unique identity. Second, nurturing ongoing closeness with the front line, both customers and employees. You must continuously test the vision against reality and evolve the answers alongside your teams.

Finally, you have to create the conditions for quality execution: a clear framework and KPIs, defined responsibilities, but also the freedom to make mistakes within a controlled budget.

I often tell my teams: you are allowed to make mistakes, but not twice the same way… You have to build trust so that people dare to take action, make proposals, and escalate issues; that is fundamental to engaging them.

A customer-centric strategy is not judged solely by the quality of the diagnosis, but by the leader's ability to transform it into a distinctive, consistent, and financially sound experience.