Laurent Lemercier

Head of e-Merchandising & Web Products

My career path within the PVCPTeam

In the last year of my master’s degree in digital marketing, I joined Pierre & Vacances as an apprentice in charge of sales promotion. After a year, a position became available and I was offered a permanent contract. From then on, every two or three years, I was able to evolve, until my current position, which is attached to the Center Parcs brand. I now have 4 teams in my scope. I manage highly competent employees of different ages and cultures, based in France, Germany, the Netherlands and Belgium. My career path was quick but I was able to gradually build my managerial approach by drawing inspiration from internal mentors, training and personalized coaching from the Group’s HR. I also tried to open myself up to the outside world, by looking at how other companies in my ecosystem were doing, especially my partners.

Now it is my turn to recruit young people in training with the idea of making them want to stay!
I consider our apprentices and trainees to be full-fledged members of the team, I make no distinction. And when I see potential employees who stand out, I do everything I can to integrate them, so that they stay with the Group. There’s a lot of goodwill in this company, and that’s something that builds loyalty and makes people want to stay. And it’s also a truly international company. Our working language is English. When we come out of school, we are not always very good (especially in France!): internal training and daily practice allow us to really develop this important skill.

To me, “getting back to basics” means… ?

To be able to disconnect, from social networks, emails, to spend time with those we love, to make memories. I have no problem doing that. I went on safari recently, I put my phone down the first day and turned it back on the last. I can do that because I have people I trust on my team, I know everything is managed.