Executive Committee

Taking over from Pierre Bellon, who founded Sodexo in Marseilles, France in 1966, Michel Landel was appointed Group CEO in September 2005. President of Sodexo's Executive Committee, he also became a member of the Board of Directors in January 2009. 

After his studies at the European Business School in France, England and Germany, Michel joined the Chase Manhattan Bank and then worked for Poliet group. He started his career at Sodexo in 1984, when he accepted the position of Chief Operating Manager for Eastern and North Africa. By 1986, he had been promoted to President of the Group's entire operations of Remote Sites in Africa.  In 1989 he took charge of the Group's North American operations.

In 1998, he successfully managed the merger between Sodexo's North American activities and Marriott Management Services, the top-ranked player in the American food services market. Under his leadership, Sodexo became a premier provider of Food and Facilities Management Services in North America, which currently generates 39.1% of the Group's consolidated revenues and employs more than 120,000 people.

In 1999, Michel Landel was named President and Chief Executive Officer of Sodexo, North America.  In 2000 he was appointed Vice President of the Group Executive Committee.

In 1996 Michel initiated the STOP Hunger Sodexo Foundation where he remains the President today. This international program against hunger and malnutrition focuses on four areas of action: volunteering, sharing our expertise, food donations and financial donations. With over 362 major initiatives and partnerships with 237 NGOs and associations, STOP Hunger is active in 29 countries across the globe.

Throughout his career, Michel has been the recipient of many prestigious awards. Recognized as a champion of diversity, he received the CEO Leadership Award for Diversity Best Practices and the CEO Advocate of the Year by Asian Enterprise Magazine.

Born in 1951, Michel Landel is married and has three children.

Publication of the authorization concerning the commitment made to Michel Landel, in accordance with Article R. 225-34-1 of the French Commercial Code

Elisabeth Carpentier has been the Chief Human Resources Officer and an Executive Committee member since 1998 for Sodexo, which today employs 380,000 people and is the seventh largest employer in Europe.

Holder of a Master of Law degree and a postgraduate diploma in Human Resources Management (CIFFOP), Elisabeth Carpentier joined Sodexo in 1981 as Director of Recruitment and Employment for the Remote Sites segment. She successively held the posts of Director of International Human Resources and Human Resources Director, France.

In 1992, she participated actively in the creation of the Sodexo Management Institute (SMI), a multicultural and international crossroads for meetings, exchanges and sharing, to contribute to the continuous development of the Group's leaders.

Between 1992 and 1998, with the acquisition of Gardner Merchant in the UK, Partena in Sweden and Marriott Management Services in the U.S., the Group's revenues multiplied by five and its employees by 4.5. In this context, Elisabeth Carpentier took on the challenge of integrating executives from the acquired companies. The programs developed within the Sodexo Management Institute made it possible to reinforce a common culture, build a shared managerial vision and capitalize on the knowledge of different countries and activities.

With the goal of motivating and retaining Sodexo employees, she was involved in the April 2001 launch of the company's first International Savings Plan, which opened share ownership to Sodexo employees.

In 2009, to pursue the objective of making Sodexo a benchmark employer in services that improve Quality of Life, Elisabeth Carpentier formalized a framework of action - Sodexo's Employer Offer - aligned with employee expectations and the company's business growth objectives. Through its promise, "Your future, so sodexo,” the Group makes commitments to employees at five key moments in their careers: recruiting, welcoming, living, growing and rewarding.

Elisabeth Carpentier is a member of Sodexo Women's International Forum for Talent (SWIFt), a council of 20 women leaders of Sodexo responsible for proposing tangible actions to accelerate the representation of women in the Group's Top 300. She also is a member of the HR50, an international group of HR directors within the peers' network of World 50 Inc.

Born in 1954, Elizabeth Carpentier is married with two children.

George Chavel is President and Chief Executive Officer of Sodexo North America. With 2009 revenues of $7.8 billion, which accounts for 39.1% of the global revenue for the parent company, Sodexo North America is a leading provider of On-site Services specializing in corporate, health care, education, and government markets in the United States, Canada, and Mexico. Headquartered in Gaithersburg, Maryland, Sodexo North America employs 120,000 people in the company's six business lines serving more than 6,600 clients and ten million customers daily. Mr. Chavel also serves as the Chief Operating Officer for the parent company in a global role and is a member of the Group's Executive Committee.

A strong advocate of training and development opportunities for employees and building diverse and inclusive workplaces, Mr. Chavel joined Sodexo in 1991 and has held a wide range of leadership positions including Vice President for the Hospitals/Acute Care Division and Chief Operating Officer and Health Care Market President for Sodexo North America. Prior to joining Sodexo, Mr. Chavel spent seven years in the restaurant franchising industry. He began his professional career with Arthur Andersen.

Mr. Chavel is a former board member of the National Committee for Quality Health Care (NCQHC) and the National Center for Healthcare Leadership (NCHL).  He currently chairs the company's Diversity Leadership Council and serves on the Johns Hopkins Carey Business School Corporate Advisory Board, the Albion College Board of Trustees, the boards of the Hispanic College Fund, the Maryland Montgomery County Chamber of Commerce, and the Sodexo Foundation, the charitable arm of Sodexo, Inc. whose mission is to end hunger in America.

A native of Michigan, Mr. Chavel graduated from Albion College, in Albion, Michigan with a bachelor of arts in Economics and Management. Born in 1959, George Chavel is married and has two children.

Group Chief Operating Officer and member of the Group's Executive Committee, Pierre Henry is CEO of Benefits and Rewards Services (formerly Motivation Solutions), one of the three components of Sodexo Group's unique Service Solutions offer. With its €711 million turnover and €12.1 billion projection volume, Sodexo ranks number two in the world for Benefits and Rewards Services, which comprise three types of offers (advantages for employees, incentive programs, and public funding) and an extensive range of innovative services (Meal Pass, Transport Pass, Health Pass, Culture Pass, etc.) provided to 26.3 million beneficiaries in 31 countries.

Pierre Henry also heads On-site Services for South America, where the Group employs 44,000 people working on over 2,000 sites in 7 countries. In February 2010, he also becomes responsible for On-site Services for Continental Europe (excluding France and the United Kingdom). This new responsibility will enable Pierre Henry to reinforce the links between the various parts of the Group's offer and facilitate the development of an integrated offer.

Pierre Henry was born in Belgium, and joined Sodexo in 1980 as regional Manager for French-speaking Belgium. In 1982, he was appointed to head the Sales Department and then promoted to Managing Director for Belgium in 1987. His teams began to diversify the service offering with the successful launch of the Gift Pass. Between 1987 and 1993, issue volume increased by 50% per year. When the Pass ALE (Local Agency for Employment) was launched in 1993-it enabled the long-term unemployed to be paid for domestic services-, Sodexo became the first company in Belgium to provide solutions that optimize public funding management.

The same year, Pierre Henry was also appointed head of the Central European region. He supervised the launch of operations in Hungary and Austria, then in 1995, the Czech Republic, and in 1997, Poland and Slovakia, which in turn, experienced very rapid growth. Promoted to Director for the Western Europe, Asia, and North Africa region in 2000, Pierre Henry worked with the European team on the launching of operations in the United Kingdom, which, like Hungary, generated a return on investments in just 12 months.

Today, Pierre Henry's ambition is to help the Group attain the position of world leader in Benefits and Rewards Services. This is being attained by extending the offer to new regions (such as the Asiatic countries), developing new vectors for growth (like the EcoPass in Belgium and the Gift Pass in many countries), and consolidating Sodexo's lead in the quality of the service offer it provides for its customers. Pierre Henry is pursuing these goals with a major advantage: namely, that the collaborators are highly responsive to markets and customer needs. As CEO South America and Continental Europe for On-site Services, Pierre Henry also intends to develop the Group's leadership on the various markets, whether in Brazil and in the Remote Sites segment, or in Central European countries, where the Group still has major development potential.

Pierre Henry was born in 1952, is married, and has two children.

Siân Herbert-Jones has been Sodexo's Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Group's Executive Committee since 2001. In 2009, she was named "CFO of the Year” at the 10th annual presentation of the award by Le Figaro, Hudson and the National French Association of CFOs and Comptrollers (DFCG).

Guarantor of Sodexo's financial model and leader of its financial community of more than 2,000 people in 80 countries, Siân Herbert-Jones applies a financial strategy that is both simple and rigorous to enable the Group to achieve growth in results and revenues while maintaining its independence. Under her leadership, the Finance Department has become a strategic partner in the Group's development, playing a key role in negotiating and integrating acquisitions, developing public private partnerships and signing contracts with Large International Accounts. Responsible for internal control and risk management, she also has helped establish strong principles of corporate governance and ensured transparency and regularity of financial and investor relations communications.

With extensive experience gained during almost fifteen years in the London and Paris offices of PriceWaterhouseCoopers, Siân Herbert-Jones, then Director of Mergers and Acquisitions, played an active role in Sodexo's acquisition of Gardner Merchant, the UK's leading foodservices company and No. 1 in Europe. She was one of the lead architects of this successful merger that made Sodexo the world leader in the foodservices and services market in 1995.

Siân Herbert-Jones then joined Sodexo in 1995 to contribute to its development. Responsible for financial management, she was appointed Director of Finance and Treasury in 1998, then Deputy Chief Financial Officer in 2000, before being named to her current position in 2001.

She contributed to the merger with Marriott Management Services, the No. 1 food and management services company in the U.S., for which she designed and implemented an innovative financing plan.

She participated in the launch in April 2001 of the company's first International Savings Plan, which opened share ownership to 19,000 employees in 22 countries.  In April 2002, she also played a key role in the introduction of Sodexo (Sodexho Alliance at the time) on the New York Stock Exchange.

Siân Herbert-Jones is a member of Sodexo Women's International Forum for Talent (SWIFt), a council of 20 women leaders of Sodexo responsible for proposing tangible actions to accelerate the representation of women in the Group's Top 300. Born in 1960 and originally from Wales, Siân Herbert-Jones holds a Master of Art in history from Oxford University and graduated from the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Sodexo's CEO for Remote Sites and Asia-Australia, Nicolas Japy is a Chief Operating Officer of the Group and a member of its Executive Committee.

After receiving his degree in engineering, Nicolas Japy began his career in 1982 with BEICIP, a consulting subsidiary of the French Petroleum Institute. He subsequently worked for the regional airline TAT, then Air Vendee as CEO.

In 1991, Nicolas Japy joined Sodexo as director of its Congo subsidiary. Two years later, he was appointed director for Saudi Arabia, where he raised the performance of this historic Group subsidiary. In 1997 he was promoted to director for Africa, with responsibility for establishing dynamic development in the continent's countries.

After seven years with Sodexo, he left the Group to take a position as head of Club Med's U.S. operations. In 2001, he accepted an offer to return to Sodexo to run its Remote Sites business, redefine its strategy, unify its teams around the Group's values and achieve profitable growth. Under his leadership, Sodexo has become the world's number two in the Remote Sites client segment, employing more than 32,000 people in 40 countries and generating revenue of over one billion euros.

In 2005, the Group entrusted Nicolas Japy with new responsibilities in addition to Remote Sites: achieving profitability in Australia and driving development forward in Southeast Asia, particularly in the field of Facilities Management. Under his leadership, a transversal center of FM expertise was created in Singapore. In 2009, he was also given responsibility for all Group operations in India (excluding Benefits and rewards Services) after Sodexo's acquisition of Radhakrishna Hospitality Services Group (RKHS), India's leading provider of food and facilities management services.

Today, Nicolas Japy mobilizes all of his teams around an innovative methodology designed to better respond to the expectations of clients and consumers in a market that is both global and highly segmented. He also seeks to fulfill Sodexo's mission of contributing to the economic, social and environmental development of the countries, regions and communities where it operates, a commitment he has shared from the outset. Under his leadership, these goals are systematically integrated into Sodexo's offer throughout the Remote Sites and Asia-Australia organization.

Born in 1956, Nicolas Japy is married and the father of four children.

Aurélien SONET joined Sodexo June 19, 2000 after three years as a financial auditor at Deloitte. His first position with the Group was Comptroller for the countries of Eastern Europe, Russia and India for the Benefits and Rewards Services activity (formerly Motivation Solutions).

In 2002 he became CFO for the Europe and Asia zone of Benefits and Rewards Services before being promoted two years later to the position of Vice President of Strategic Planning, Marketing and Communications for Benefits and Rewards Services. At the same time, he guided the development of On-site Services' operations in India until September 2006.

In October 2007, he was appointed President of France for Benefits and Rewards Services with the mission to support the Group's ambition to become the global leader in this activity.

His focus on strengthening operational performance and client relations has contributed to reinforcing Sodexo's expertise, increasing the innovativeness of its offers and growing its sales on the French market. He also led the process of integrating the teams of Tir Groupé and Benefits and Rewards Services, creating France's leader in the Benefits and Rewards Services market.

In September 2010, he became Group Vice President for Strategic Planning and External Communications and was named to the Group Executive Committee. In this post, he and his teams are responsible for supporting the continued transformation of Sodexo's new strategic positioning as the global leader in Quality of Life Services.

Born in 1975, Aurélien Sonet holds a degree in engineering from the Ecole Centrale de Lyon.

Damien Verdier was appointed Group Marketing Director in 2005, responsible for supply chain, client retention and offer marketing. Since September 2008, he also has been responsible for Sustainable Development. Damien Verdier is a member of the Group Executive Committee.

After completing his studies at the Ecole Superieure de Commerce Audencia Nantes (1979), he joined Sodexo in Tours as Sector Director, Foodservices and Services. In 1983, he was appointed Director of Development for the Corporate segment in Brittany and was promoted two years later, at age 28, as Regional Director in Nantes.

Appointed Director of Operations for the Corporate segment in France in 1991, he became its Director in 1993.  In a difficult economic environment, he put in place a quality improvement and cost reduction plan that significantly improved profitability. He also implemented the first sub-segmenting initiative, with specialized teams and offers tailored to the specific needs of different clients.

In 1998, Damien Verdier was promoted to CEO, France. He expanded implementation of an operational organization closer to clients, applying the sub-segmentation approach in Education and Health Care to achieve a breakthrough in these markets. At the same time, he centralized functional structures and created a shared services center. Under his direction, Sodexo regained the position as France's market leader.

In 2003 he was appointed Director of Strategy for Continental Europe, responsible for supporting European countries in applying key Group initiatives. His objective: tangible operational achievement of strategic direction, performance measurement and definition of corrective actions.

Damien Verdier was President of the National Foodservices Association from 2001 to 2006 and Vice-President of the European Foodservices Federation (Ferco).  He currently chairs the European Commission's professional services group within MEDEF and the working group on services within the European employers' organization, BusinessEurope.

Born in 1957, Damien Verdier is married with four children.