Volker Büring, Accor's Corporate Human Resources General Manager for 13 years, will be pursuing opportunities as a human resources and organization consultant, his occupation before joining the Group. In this new capacity, he will maintain ties with Accor and provide advisory services in areas where his experience and knowledge will be valuable for the Group. Mr. Büring will remain Chairman of the Supervisory Board of Accor Hotels Germany.

Cathy Kopp, formerly Group Vice President, Human Resources with the LVMH Group, spent most of her career at IBM. 

After obtaining master's degrees in mathematics, Ms. Kopp joined IBM France in 1973 as a technical sales engineer. After holding a number of operational positions, she moved into human resources in 1990 as Director of Employees, Managers and Executive Education at IBM Europe, a position that gave her career international scope. After returning to IBM France as Director of Human Resources for France, she was appointed Vice President Human Resources for a division of IBM Corporation in California, and in 1998 was appointed Vice President Global Employee Relations Human Resources for the IBM Corporation, which at the time had 320,000 employees worldwide. After returning to directly operational functions at IBM Europe, Ms. Kopp was named Country General Manager for France, then Chairman of IBM France in 2001.

With 147,000 associates in 140 countries, Accor is the European leader and one of the world's largest groups in travel, tourism and corporate services.