🔵 Intermarché changes the game: a marketing director as a cultural weapon

A simple HR move? Not quite.

The appointment of Guillaume Lesouef as Marketing Director is a strategic play.

An unexpected profile: ex-LVMH, then Maisons du Monde, carrying a dual culture of luxury and mass retail, product and CSR. This choice says it all: Intermarché wants to shift the battle from the price arena to that of perceived value, image, and differentiation.

Why now? Because the company is at a crossroads: its alliance with Casino, pressure from Carrefour and Leclerc, and the rise of Amazon. In this context, marketing becomes a strategic weapon—not only to attract consumers, but also to instill a new culture internally and project a different image externally.

A move reminiscent of strategies seen elsewhere: when Kering appointed the former CEO of Renault to import an outside culture and rewrite its story. Same logic: bringing in a profile from beyond its ecosystem to disrupt the codes and shift the center of gravity.

The media narrative confirms the signal: relayed by LSA, targeted at B2B, with “ex-LVMH” placed front and center as a badge of legitimacy. Not a mass-market story, but a message calibrated for the ecosystem and its competitors.

The HUMINT reading: Intermarché is appointing a marketing director to act as a cultural architect. More than a functional role, it’s a strategic piece. What may appear secondary is, in reality, a marker of transformation.

The real question: who will be able to read, behind job titles, the invisible moves that are reshaping the game?

#HUMINTAdvisory #ExecutiveSearch #RetailStrategy #Leadership #Influence