On May 17th, the Board of Directors of PagesJaunes Groupe appointed Jean-Pierre Remy as Chief Executive Officer to replace Michel Datchary, as of May, 25th, 2009. (…)

Jean-Pierre Remy, 45, graduated from Ecole Centrale Paris and holds a PhD from HEC. After having spent several years as a Partner at Bain & Company (specialized in Internet and new technologies), Jean-Pierre Remy founded Egencia in 2000, now a worldwide leader in corporate travel. Following the acquisition of Egencia by Expedia in April 2004, Jean-Pierre Remy was appointed as European and then Global Managing Director in charge of corporate travel for the Expedia group, and was a member of the Executive Committee of Expedia Inc.

via EuroInvestor.co.uk – PAGESJAUNES GROUPE: Jean-Pierre Remy Appointed CEO of PagesJaunes Groupe.

What it means: when a CEO is replaced, it’s always interesting to look at the background of the new executive that’s coming on board. It helps to understand what will be expected of the company in the next three to five years, especially when he replaces someone who’s been in that job position for a long period of time (Datchary had been the head of Pages Jaunes France for 13 years and had joined the company in 1979).

Remy (his Linkedin profile is here) comes from management consulting (Bain) where he ran the Internet practice and, according to this bio, “he advised large international companies on their growth strategies, new ventures, mergers and acquisitions, and reorganizations.” He also has a PHD in Strategy from HEC Paris. But he is primarily an entrepreneur, founding Egencia in 2000, a corporate travel startup that was later acquired by Expedia (in 2004). He had been a senior executive at Expedia since the acquisition and resigned two weeks ago. So, in terms of skill set, he has Web, entrepreneurship, strategy, growth, M&A and management expertise and he’s had the chance to work in an industry (travel) that was severely disrupted by the Internet and in a large company in that space (Expedia).

So, I suspect he will be looking at implementing strategies to properly transition Print to Online (more aggressively), possibly looking at key online acquisitions to grow. He will hopefully bring an Internet culture and an entrepreneurial management style to the company while having a good understanding how a large organization like PagesJaunes Groupe behaves to avoid sending it into complete chaos.