Overview

Gender

male

Arnaud Puyfontaine was born on April 26, 1964 in Paris, France, and is a graduate of the ESCP (1988), the Multimedia Institute (1992) and Harvard Business School (2000).

In 1989, he started his career as a consultant at Arthur Andersen and then worked as a project manager at Rhône-Poulenc Pharma in Indonesia.

In 1990, he joined Figaro as Executive Director. In 1995, as a member of the founding team of the Emap Group in France, he headed Télé Poche and Studio Magazine, managed the acquisition of Télé Star and Télé Star Jeux, and started up the Emap Star Division, before becoming Chief Executive Officer of Emap France in 1998.


In 1999, he was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Emap France, and, in 2000, joined the Executive Board of Emap Plc. He has led several M&A deals, and concomitantly, from 2000 to 2005, served as Chairman of EMW, the Emap/Wanadoo digital subsidiary.

In August 2006, he was appointed Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Editions Mondadori France. In June 2007, he became General Head of all digital business for the Mondadori Group.


In April 2009, Arnaud joined the US HEARST media group as Chief Executive Officer of its UK subsidiary, Hearst UK. In 2011, on behalf of the Hearst Group, he led the acquisition of 102 magazines from the Lagardère Group published abroad, and, in June 2011, was appointed Executive Vice President of Hearst Magazines International before being appointed Managing Director of Western Europe in August 2013. In May 2012, he joined the Board of Directors of Schibsted. He was Chairman of ESCP Europe Alumni.

From January to June, 2014, Arnaud was a member of Vivendi’s Management Board and Senior Executive Vice President in charge of its media and content operations. Since June 24, 2014, he has been Chairman of the Management Board.

He currently helds the following positions within the Vivendi group: Chairman of the Management Board of Vivendi; Member of the Supervisory Board of Canal+ Group; Member of the Supervisory Board of StudioCanal; Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Universal Music France.

Other positions and functions: Independent Director of Kepler; Independent Director of Schibsted Media Group; member of the Advisory Committee of Innit; Director of Melty Group.