Groupe Barrière has appointed Charlotte Gauvin as its new Group Chief Human Resources Officer, bringing over two decades of HR leadership experience from some of the most prominent names in luxury hospitality and global retail.
Gauvin joins from Belmond, the LVMH-owned ultra-luxury travel company, where she served as Senior Vice President Global Human Resources from 2023, overseeing the group’s entire worldwide HR function and leading major transformation and talent development programmes. Before Belmond, she held the role of Vice President of Global Talent, Learning & Development, Diversity, Equity & Inclusion at Sephora, where she was instrumental in shaping the retailer’s global company culture, and also served as interim HR director for Sephora’s Europe and Middle East region.
Earlier in her career, Gauvin held senior HR positions at Saint-Gobain, Alstom, Crédit Agricole, L’Oréal, Cap Gemini Ernst & Young, EDF and GEFCO, leading complex organisational transformations across industry and services. She holds a degree from De Montfort University in Leicester. Her career arc – spanning industrial conglomerates, selective retail and high-end hospitality – mirrors the precise blend of experience that large family-owned hospitality groups are now seeking as they navigate increasing operational complexity and international ambition.
Groupe Barrière was founded in 1912 and is now managed by the fourth generation of its founding family, with Alexandre Barrière and Joy Desseigne-Barrière at the helm. The group operates 20 hotels, 32 casinos, one gaming club, 15 spas, 12 performance venues, more than 150 restaurants and employs nearly 7,000 people. Five of the ten largest casinos in France are operated by the group, including those in Enghien-les-Bains, Blotzheim, Toulouse, Bordeaux and Lille, while European casino operations extend to Courrendlin, Fribourg and Montreux. The group reported 1.4 billion euros in revenue for the fiscal year ending October 2024.
Barrière is currently executing one of the most significant strategic pivots in its century-long history. The group has unified its hotel portfolio under the Barrière Collection banner, organised around four distinct positioning tiers – Signature, Heritage, Address and Premium – with Fouquet’s placed at the top as the flagship for ultra-luxury international development. The group is targeting a doubling of its hotel portfolio within a decade, with expansion planned across the US, Europe, the Maldives and Lapland, and a new casino project in Tirana. It is investing approximately €100 million annually in the renovation of iconic properties, including L’Hermitage, Le Normandy and Le Majestic. The next confirmed international opening is the Maison Barrière Príncipe Real in Lisbon, slated for 2026.
Against this backdrop, Gauvin’s appointment signals a deliberate effort by Barrière’s leadership to strengthen the internal architecture needed to sustain that expansion. International growth of this scale demands not just capital investment but the ability to attract, develop and retain operational talent across multiple cultures and markets – a discipline that defines Gauvin’s entire career. Her experience building global HR frameworks at Belmond, a collection of landmark hotels, trains and river cruisers operating across more than 20 countries, is directly applicable to the challenges Barrière now faces.
The appointment also reflects a broader shift in how family-owned hospitality groups are approaching senior leadership. Bringing in a CHRO with deep roots in the LVMH ecosystem represents a deliberate importation of governance methods more typically associated with global luxury conglomerates – structured talent pipelines, internationalised leadership development and a formal employee value proposition. For Barrière, aligning its human capital strategy with its premium brand ambitions is no longer a secondary consideration but a precondition for the next phase of growth.
