Fabrice Fries
 Fabrice Fries  (business executive) | ||||||||||||
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| Born | 10 mars 1960 | |||||||||||
| Nationality | French | |||||||||||
| Alma mater | Lycée Henri-IV, Lycée Louis-le-Grand, Sciences-po, École normale supérieure, École nationale d'administration, Berkeley, Harvard | |||||||||||
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Fabrice Fries is CEO of Agence France-Presse (AFP), one of the three news agencies providing the vast majority of news (especially international) in corporate media (the other two are Reuters and Associated Press). His career shows the seamless moves between the bureaucracy, big corporations such as PR-companies, and corporate news.
Career
Fries had an elite education, from the most prestigious lyceés and universities in France. After leaving ENA, Fabrice Fries joined the Court of Auditors, before joining the cabinet of the President of the European Commission, as part of Jacques Delors' dream team ('the Messier boys')[1], in 1990.
In 1995, he joined the multinational Compagnie Générale des Eaux (Vivendi), as project manager for the Chairman and CEO, Jean-Marie Messier.
Appointed director of strategy and development of the multinational advertising and public relations company Havas in 1997, he led the refocusing of the company's activities on publishing and the press and actively participated in the merger with Compagnie Générale des Eaux which took control of the media company in 1998.
Havas was renamed Vivendi Universal Publishing and Fabrice Fries became its deputy managing director, in charge of press and professional magazines divisions, with brands such as L'Express, as well as many health information brands around the world.
In 2001, Vivendi decided to focus on consumer publishing and separated from its specialized press branch headed by Fabrice Fries. As part of this separation, he was appointed chairman and chief executive officer of Medimedia and Aprovia, two companies resulting from the sale of Vivendi's professional press activities (Le Moniteur, Usine nouvelle, LSA, Le Quotidien du Médecin, etc.) to hedge funds.
In 2004, Fabrice joined the IT and consultation multinational Atos Origin as Senior Vice President, responsible for key accounts and market strategy.
In September 2006, he was appointed Secretary General - and member of the Executive Committee - of Publicis, the third largest PR-company in the world, before taking over as head of Publicis Consultants, an agency specializing in corporate communication (i.e propaganda), crisis communication and press relations in June 2009.
On April 12, 2018, he became president and chief executive officer of the Agence France-Presse (AFP) news agency after obtaining a qualified majority by a vote of its board of directors (13 votes out of 18) in a third ballot.
Private life
Fabrice Fries is the brother of Charles Fries, a French diplomat. He is married to Fabrizia Benini, a civil servant at the European Commission, father of two children, and lives with his family in Belgium.
