Founders
EUROPE+ Foundation has been founded by ERNST & YOUNG and the PGA group. The foundation is jointly presided by:
Pierre GUÉNANT
Co-Chairman
President of
La Baule WIC
Chairman of PGA Group
Pierre GUÉNANT has founded and managed the PGA group from a French car dealership to a € 3.2 billion European Group, leader of the car distribution markets in France and Holland and employing over 8,000 people in these two countries. As the CEO of PGA HOLDING, he is also involved in Construction Equipments Distribution and in Investments Funds and serves in several Boards as a non executive director. He began his career with the JACOBS / JACQUES VABRE Group and later with the HEULIEZ Group where he held sales, sales management positions and executive director positions.
He has been also Chairman of OUEST ATLANTIQUE, the BRITTANY, Pays de la Loire and Poitou-Charentes investment promotion agency and has chaired the Steering Committee of LA BAULE - World Investment Conference from the start. A native of France, born in 1950, he is a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris (ESCP).
Patrick GOUNELLE
Co-Chairman
Global Managing Partner
EMEIA Integration
Ernst & Young
Patrick Gounelle graduated from ESCP-EAP in 1972. He also has a Bachelor degree in Law, is a chartered accountant and statutory auditor in France. He made a career at Ernst & Young. Within this major world’s leading advisory, auditing, tax and law firm, he became successively Director of Audit, General Director and in 1998 President for France, Southern Europe and Africa, in charge of 13 000 staff members in 26 countries. He is also member of the Global Executive Committee of Ernst & Young since 1998. In 2008, he was appointed Global Managing Partner, responsible for the integration of the new structure EMEIA (Europe, Middle-East, India, and Africa).
Patrick Gounelle also takes part in several economical, social and cultural projects. He is a member of the MEDEF Economics, and of a Financial Ethics Committee. Co-founder of “Foundation Europe+”, which promotes European attractiveness, he is also administrator of “PlaNet Finance” (an N.G.O. which aims at reducing worldwide poverty by developing microfinance), of AROP (Association for the Radiance of the Paris Opera) and of the Louvre’s Museum Crescent Committee. 15 years ago he created the French “Grand Prix de l’Entrepreneur”.
President of the ESCP-EAP Association, which counts 33 000 alumni around the world, he is also vice-president of the ESCP-EAP European Foundation. Patrick Gounelle has been promoted Knight of the Legion of Honour and awarded the National Order of Merit for Agriculture.
