Gilles Pelisson

Gérard Pélisson, who co-founded the Accor hotel group and turned the business into the world's sixth largest hotel chain, has died at the age of 91. Pélisson created the Accor company together with his business partner Paul Dubrule and grew it into the world's sixth largest hotel group with 5,400 hotels in 100 countries under the Novotel, Ibis, Sofitel, Mercure and Pullman brands. Pélisson's studies at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and first job at IBM gave him valuable insights into US-style entrepreneurship. Pélisson and Dubrule left Accor's executive management in 1997 after an acquisition spree that began to weigh on the group's finances, but co-led the supervisory board until 2005.