Creation of Lagardère Sports’ Executive and Strategic Committee

Olivier Guiguet, chairman and CEO of Lagardère Sports, today announced the creation of the division’s Executive and Strategic Committee.

The committee’s members include Richard Worth, CEO of the Sportfive group (Hamburg), Jonas Persson, CEO of IEC in Sports (Stockholm), Seamus O’Brien, CEO of the World Sport group (Singapore), Fabienne Jouannet, CFO of Lagardère Sports (Paris), and Stéphane Schindler, CEO of Lagardère Sports (Paris). Mr Guiguet will serve as the committee’s chairman.

Biographies

After serving as director of sports programming for the ITV network in London for 20 years, Richard Worth spent 10 years as chairman and CEO of Team Marketing AG, an agency headquartered in Switzerland that specializes in marketing TV and media rights for the UEFA Champions League. In October 2007, he was appointed CEO of the Sportfive group, and since January 2008 he has also been CEO of Sportfive Gmbh & Co. KG.

Jonas Persson, 40, is chairman and CEO of IEC in Sports, which he founded. Before setting up IEC, he worked as a journalist for several daily newspapers and business magazines in Sweden and the UK, and has also produced a number of reports on the financial aspects of sports in Sweden for various government ministries. In 2001, he was named Entrepreneur of the Year in Stockholm. He has a master’s degree in business management and languages from the University of Lund, and also studied at the St-Gall School of Economics in Switzerland.

Seamus O’Brien is chairman and CEO of the World Sport group, which he founded in 1992.

Fabienne Jouannet started her career in 1990 in the auditing department of the Bouygues group. She first joined Lagardère in January 1992 within P.G.S., Matra Hachette’s auditing department. In September 1995, she continued her career within the group by joining Hachette Livre’s finance management department. In early 1999, she took up a position at Banque Arjil. In January 2003, she was appointed head of the auditing department, until January 2008, when she moved to Lagardère Sports, a new Lagardère division, as the Administrative and Financial Director.

Stéphane Schindler, 38, started his career at Eurosport France in 1996 as operational marketing manager. He was responsible for developing partnerships (with press and sports stakeholders) and sponsorships, as well as the promotion of special operations. In 1998, he joined Canal+ as sports acquisitions manager, responsible for negotiating sporting rights in France and worldwide for the Canal+ group. In 2000, he moved to IMG/TWI as international vice president of TWI and director of IMG Media France, where he is responsible for the marketing of sporting rights for the Rugby World Cup and America’s Cup, management of relations with French sporting institutions (including 24 Heures du Mans, the Ligue de Football Française, Roland Garros and the Tour de France), development of production activities in France, and management of multimedia activities. He holds a postgraduate degree in television and telecommunications management and a master’s degree in management and economics from the University of Paris IX Dauphine, and a university diploma in Economic Sciences (University of Paris X Nanterre).

About Lagardère Sports
One of four divisions of the Lagardère group, Lagardère Sports specializes in the sports economy.
Founded in 2006 following the acquisition of Sportfive, Lagardère Sports has expanded its activities by combining organic growth with targeted acquisitions.

The group now employs more than 610 people worldwide and operates in three main areas: 

• Media: the production and management of sports broadcasting rights for television and new media platforms.
• Marketing: sponsorship, hospitality activities and stadium consulting.
• Events: ownership and management of sporting events.

Thanks to its Sportfive subsidiary, in 2007 Lagardère Sports renewed its contract with Olympique Lyonnais and was again awarded media rights to the Africa Cup of Nations and naming rights for Hamburg’s stadium. In 2007, Lagardère Sports reported turnover of more than 440 million euros.