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Listen in as Syd talks to entrepreneurs, community leaders, professional athletes, politicians, academics, authors, musicians, and many more about who they are and how they got there.
Sydney Finkelstein is an award winning professor at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College, and a best-selling author of Superbosses and 25 other books. He’s written for the Harvard Business Review, the BBC, Fortune, Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and more academic journals than you’d care to know about. He spends his time asking questions, and sometimes, even answering them.
TSC 96: The Wisdom of Philippe Bourguignon
Episode Summary
Vice Chairman of Revolution Places and Executive Co-Chairman of Exclusive Resorts Philippe Bourguignon shares his zigzag journey that led him to the top of the travel industry. Once the CEO of Euro Disney, Philippe gives advice on having fun, being a dreamer, and taking time for yourself. Hear Philippe Bourguignon’s stories, business strategies, and wisdom in this episode of The Sydcast.
Syd Finkelstein
Syd Finkelstein is the Steven Roth Professor of Management at the Tuck School of Business at Dartmouth College. He holds a Master’s degree from the London School of Economics and a Ph.D. from Columbia University. Professor Finkelstein has published 25 books and 90 articles, including the bestsellers Why Smart Executives Fail and Superbosses: How Exceptional Leaders Master the Flow of Talent, which LinkedIn Chairman Reid Hoffman calls the “leadership guide for the Networked Age.” He is also a Fellow of the Academy of Management, a consultant and speaker to leading companies around the world, and a top 25 on the Global Thinkers 50 list of top management gurus. Professor Finkelstein’s research and consulting work often relies on in-depth and personal interviews with hundreds of people, an experience that led him to create and host his own podcast, The Sydcast, to uncover and share the stories of all sorts of fascinating people in business, sports, entertainment, politics, academia, and everyday life.
Philippe Bourguignon
Vice Chairman, Revolution Places; Executive Co-Chairman, Exclusive Resorts
Philippe Bourguignon is vice chairman of Revolution Places, a company that is creating a new model for travel and tourism that promotes and encourages a healthy lifestyle, Philippe establishes consumer brands that reflect those values. In addition, he serves as executive co-chairman of Exclusive Resorts, a carefully vetted collection of more than 300 privately managed multimillion-dollar residences in iconic destinations paired with highly personalized and intuitive service. Revolution Places’ approach is to create unique, authentic experiences that can become treasured memories that last a lifetime — and build large businesses in the process.
Prior to joining Revolution Places, Philippe was co-chief executive officer of the Davos-based World Economic Forum in 2003 and 2004. Previously, as chairman and chief executive of Club Med, he was widely credited with a comprehensive turnaround of the company in 2000. The change included refocusing the brand, revamping operations and restoring competitiveness, implementing an innovative pricing policy, and completely overhauling the management culture.
Beginning in 1988, Philippe worked with Disney in several capacities, including as chairman and chief executive officer of Euro Disney, and executive vice president of Disney Europe. As the head of Euro Disney, he led a far-reaching corporate restructuring which restored the company on solid financial footing and achieved operating results far ahead of market expectations.
Previously Philippe spent 14 years with the Accor group, one of the largest hotel groups in the world. Initially serving as vice president of Development for Asia/Middle East and executive vice president of North America, he was eventually promoted to president of Accor for the Asia/Pacific region.
Today, Philippe sits on the board of two Revolution companies: Exclusive Resorts, a luxury travel club, and Mint House, a hospitality company setting a new standard in business travel.
He also co-founded Le Shack with his daughter in 2020.
In addition, he is also an active member on the board of Neiman Marcus, the global board of Operation Hope and chairman of HOPE Global Forums, a non-profit organization with a vision to eradicate poverty.
He is also the chairman of Primonial a Paris based wealth management firm and an active investor in OneRagtime, a European disruptive venture platform. He previously served as a member of the board of directors for Zipcar and spent 11-years on the board at eBay.
Philippe is also a co-founder of the Monthly Barometer. The Barometer is a subscription service that enables executives and leaders from around the world to anticipate and leverage emerging trends, using “contextual intelligence” methods to distill into one page the macro issues relevant to time-starved decision-makers. It has been in existence for more than five years and has a remarkably accurate track record.
In 2005, Philippe published his first book, Hop!, a revealing discussion on the paradoxes of the world and the French economy.
On a personal note — Philippe Bourguignon is married, and the father of two children. He is a man of many passions – a dedicated racer of yachts who, with Bruno Peyron, set a record in 1996 for crossing the English Channel.
Insights from this episode:
- Reasons why it is important to have fun and play, no matter what your age.
- Tips for practicing unconsciousness to overcome doubt and imposter syndrome.
- Information on the “zigzag strategy” and how to leverage it in your life and career.
- How Philippe helped revive Club Med and Euro Disney, and his reflections on the travel industry.
- How Philippe is working to create “opportunities of collision.”
Quotes from the show:
- “You should still play as a kid. Even if you learn serious things, you should still play because the minute you stop playing, you become serious. And when you become serious, it’s the beginning of the end.” — Philippe Bourguignon [13:32]
- “A good businessman needs to have a certain level of unconsciousness. If you are too conscious, you don’t take risks.” — Philippe Bourguignon [22:19]
- “I don’t believe in straight lines… Americans believe in straight lines. America is the only country which has built a city based on straight lines over 14 hills called San Francisco and swear… straight lines are efficient.” — Philippe Bourguignon [26:27]
- “In life you meander, you don’t go straight. Those people who want to go straight, they lose opportunities.” — Philippe Bourguignon [27:24]
- “Experience is like the light on the back of a train. It lights the backtrack behind us. While vision lights the tracks ahead, where you’re not sure where you’re going.” — Philippe Bourguignon [30:27]
- “I was feeling more like a carton of milk with an expiration date, but after I joined Revolution, I became like a bottle of old wine.” — Philippe Bourguignon [35:17]
- On branding: “A lot of agencies force, or a lot of clients of agencies accept to have a brand bible, and all of a sudden, the brand is driving the decisions of the company, while the brand should be the expression of what the company is.” — Philippe Bourguignon [50:28]
- “Those hotels have a soul. They don’t need a loyalty program for me to come back. The experience I got there is good enough that I don’t need points to come back.” — Philippe Bourguignon [52:05]
- “I was given a chance. Therefore, I knew and trusted my leaders that I would get somewhere.” — Philippe Bourguignon [1:04:53]
Stay Connected:
Syd Finkelstein
Website: http://thesydcast.com
LinkedIn: Sydney Finkelstein
Twitter: @sydfinkelstein
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Philippe Bourguignon
Website: https://www.revolution.com/
Linkedin: Philippe Bourguignon
Le Shack: https://leshack.fr/
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This episode was produced and managed by Podcast Laundry (www.podcastlaundry.com)
