Mr. Francis Gabet was appointed Director of the Olympic Museum on 24 September 2003.
Since 2006, Mr. Gabet has also served as President of the Olympic Museums Network, which brings together the 15 most important Olympic museums around the world.
Based in Lausanne, the Olympic Capital, the Olympic Museum welcomes around 200,000 visitors per year, with almost 50,000 of them youngsters, and it is the fourth most visited museum in Switzerland. Its international activities bring in between 500,000 and 1,000,000 visitors each year.
The Museum is a department of the IOC and employs around 100 people, with an annual operating budget of 12 million Euros. It holds both permanent and temporary exhibitions, conducts educational activities for schools as well as various cultural activities, boasts a seminar and conference centre, develops licensing programmes based on its collections and organises educational programmes and exhibitions across the globe.
Under the direction of Mr. Gabet, the Olympic Museum has increased its international activities considerably, while also raising its income. It has likewise completely modernised its methods and resources.
Before 2003, Mr. Gabet was director of the L’Equipe brand, consisting of the sports daily – France’s biggest selling daily newspaper – a magazine, a television news channel, a website and France’s leading publisher of sports books. He joined the company as director of marketing and communication for L’Equipe and L’Equipe Magazine in 1989, overseeing a formidable rise in sales and the launch of a Sunday edition of the newspaper, not to mention the branching out into audiovisual and digital realms and the creation of a publishing arm.
Prior to that, Mr. Gabet worked for ten years in the advertising industry, occupying several key posts with the Havas Advertising group, including Commercial Director. In that role, he advised brands such as Evian (especially in the sporting arena), Air France, 3M, Philips and Darty.
Born on 28 April 1954 and a graduate of the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Paris in 1977, Frenchman Mr. Gabet is a passionate rugby fan and a former player at second-division level. He is also a keen skier and tennis player.
++ Interview Francis GABET
