Lionel Benbassat, Marketing and Product Director at Eurostar joins FRED & FARID Paris as Managing Director

FRED & FARID announces the arrival of Lionel Benbassat, Marketing and Product Director at Eurostar as Managing Director of FRED & FARID Paris. Reporting to Fred Raillard and Farid Mokart, Presidents and Founders of the group, he will lead the daily operation of the Parisian agency FRED & FARID, alongside Olivier Lefebvre, Executive Creative Director, and Emmanuel Ferry, who previously held this function. Emmanuel Ferry is promoted France CSO (Chief Strategy Officer), and will be in charge of the challenges concerning Business Intelligence, guiding brands thinking about value creation and anticipating new corporate issues.

A graduate of EM Lyon in 2003 and holding a Master of Business Law and Taxation from the University of Panthéon-Assas Paris II, Lionel Benbassat ​​began his professional life in Consulting before joining Eurostar in 2004 where he would have an exemplary career. Upon his arrival, he was responsible for developing the online marketing for the French market, before gradually being handed more responsibility, being in charge of the brand’s entire communication budget in France, and then handling Sales and Marketing for France. In 2012, he crossed the Channel and traveled to London with a mission to develop a common brand platform for Eurostar and consolidate English, French and Belgian Marketing teams. As part of his duties, Lionel was also responsible for data and market research, as well as the EFT loyalty program and the evolution of Eurostar products offers.

“Lionel has made a terrific contribution to our business and the Eurostar brand. Over the last 12 years, he has built a successful career in our company and a strong reputation as a marketing leader. He leaves our business with strong foundation to build on and I am sure that he will go from strength to strength in his new role.” - CCO d'Eurostar, Nick Mercer

The arrival of Lionel Benbassat to the Executive Management of FRED & FARID Paris echoes the obsession of the independent international group to develop customer culture at the heart of creativity, at every level whether it’s social, tech, data, content or service-based.

“We are in an industry of solutions, serving businesses and brands. Our creativity should be agnostic, feeding on the collaboration of all internal and external expertise. The arrival of Lionel is a further step on that path. It aims to make the agency more effective in listening, more proactive, more agile and answer to creating value for our clients. Lionel’s mission, due to his profile and path, will be to accelerate this process for the whole group (Paris, Shanghai and New York). We want to create the best of both worlds between the client and the culture of creative culture.” - Farid Mokart, Creative CEO, Co-Founder FRED & FARID.

“Marketers jobs are at the heart of a revolution that offer tremendous opportunities, but also raise a number of issues and risks. I was immersed in these issues on a daily rate as Eurostar's Marketing Director. I am convinced that the role of the group’s agencies is to support its customers to help them from becoming increasingly complex, by creating value with creativity, developing simple and pragmatic solutions. This vision is at the heart of the culture of the group, and I am delighted to join FRED & FARID Paris to embody and use my experience on the client side to help our teams and our customers.” - Lionel Benbassat, Director General FRED & FARID Paris.

“It's a real pleasure to integrate Lionel within the agency. His personality and his career perfectly match the values ​​of integrity and the collective that we all carry since the birth of the agency. His view of the agency world will be valuable for us as we continue to strive to meet new expectations and concerns of our clients, and continue to challenge in our quest for optimization.” - Emmanuel Ferry, Chief Strategy Officer France FRED & FARID Paris.