Gwendoline CazenaveCEO, Eurostar Group

Gwendoline Cazenave was appointed CEO of Eurostar Group on 1 October 2022. The group was created by the merger of Eurostar and Thalys to create a European champion of high-speed rail. As part of her mandate, Gwendoline Cazenave will integrate the two companies, with the ambition of creating the backbone of sustainable travel, carrying 30 million passengers by 2030. This growth project aims to create a unique travel experience under a single brand.

An enthusiastic European, she is guided by the wish to connect five European countries and 245 million people ever more efficiently. As a committed leader, she wishes to contribute to the revolution of sustainable travel by advancing rail as a responsible alternative to road and air travel.

Although Gwendoline Cazenave began her career in auditing and finance, she quickly became a recognised operational manager in the rail sector, with a career marked by strategic achievements and successful transformations. During her 20 years at SNCF, she took up major challenges: in 2008, for example, she took over the management of the TER Brittany regional network, which had major strategic and political implications. In 2016, she became head of TGV Atlantique and took on the challenge of launching two high-speed lines, to Rennes and Bordeaux, at the same time.  After a spell in strategy consulting at Oliver Wyman, she returned to the world of railways – and trains became her second home.

Originally from the South of France, Gwendoline Cazenave is a graduate of Sciences Po Grenoble, the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Reims and McGill University in Montreal, Canada. 

She is a member of the Board of Tallano Technologies, a member of the Board of Union Financière de France (UFB), where she heads the Audit, Risks and Appointments Committee, and has just been appointed as a member of the Board of Irish Rail. She is also a mentor in the NGO Article 1, which works for equal opportunities for underprivileged youth.