Maud Bailly, CEO, Sofitel, MGallery, & Emblems on Power, Performance, and Why Luxury Still Has a Gender Problem

Hertelier Leadership Conversations A recurring series of candid conversations with women leading at the highest levels of hospitality, unpacking ambition, responsibility, impact, and what it really takes to hold all three at once.

Before the swirl of ILTM Cannes fully took hold last month, I sat down with Maud Bailly, CEO of Sofitel, MGallery and Emblems, in the calming lobby of the Croisette Beach Hotel Cannes, an MGallery property that felt refreshingly removed from the chaos outside. I was greeted by the hotel’s General Manager, Lucile Falguieres. No surprise the hotel is led by a woman. Bailly has made elevating more women into general manager and executive roles across luxury one of her clearest priorities.

On paper, Bailly is one of the most powerful women in global hospitality, overseeing three luxury brands across more than 250 properties worldwide, from legacy flagships to newly launched concepts. In person, she is candid, quick to laugh, and far more interested in impact than titles.

Her career has never followed the usual hospitality playbook. Before Accor, Bailly moved through some of France’s most elite institutions, studying modern literature at the École Normale Supérieure before earning degrees from Sciences Po and the École Nationale d’Administration. She began her career inside the French state at the General Inspectorate of Finance, working on high-level audits for organizations including the World Bank and the IMF, before pivoting into infrastructure to run Paris Montparnasse station and oversee TGV product strategy at SNCF. Along the way, she also found ways to inject moments of joy into everyday commutes, including introducing pianos into French train stations.

In 2015, she joined the office of Prime Minister Manuel Valls, working on economic and digital policy issues ranging from Brexit to data protection. By 2017, she crossed into the private sector as Accor’s Chief Digital Officer, before being appointed CEO of Southern Europe, where she quietly delivered one of the strongest records for female general managers in the group. In 2023, she stepped into her current role, overseeing Sofitel, MGallery and the newly launched ultra-luxury brand, Emblems.

It’s her mix of public-sector rigor, digital fluency, operational credibility, and instinct for human detail that makes Maud such a compelling voice. It is also why our conversation moves easily between power, performance, and the realities women still face at the top of luxury hospitality.

You’ve spoken openly about feeling like an outsider early in your career. How did that shape you as a leader?

Paradoxically, our challenges and even our failures are often our greatest chances. I grew up in a loving, educated family, but without training in the unwritten rules for France’s elite schools. So I had to try, and sometimes try twice. At the time, I saw that as failure. Later, I understood it as a blessing.

When I first attempted the École Nationale d’Administration exams, I didn’t pass. Not because I was less intelligent, but because I was not trained to behave in the expected way. How to present myself. How to structure thinking. And I often wonder if I had passed immediately, would I have become the coach I am today? Would I have developed such a strong instinct to give back? I don’t think so.

Today, after more than twenty years, I mentor, coach, and train every young person, young adult, or professional who asks me for help along the way. That commitment came directly from that early experience of not being taught the rules. Once I learned them, I promised myself I would pass them on.

It reminds me of the Japanese art of kintsugi. Broken ceramics repaired with gold. They become more beautiful because they were broken. I believe powerful leaders are like that. It is not about hiding weakness or pretending to be untouchable. It is about owning your story and making something stronger from it.

When you led Southern Europe for Accor, you reached 43 percent female general managers. In luxury, those numbers drop sharply. Why is that?

Because when money gets bigger, resistance gets stronger.

In Southern Europe, across economy, midscale, and luxury, we reached forty-three percent female general managers. But when I stepped into the luxury segment globally, I inherited just twenty-three percent. We pushed it to twenty-eight percent at one point and then fell back to twenty-five. We appointed ten women and lost ten women to fierce competition.

What worries me is the invisible barrier between women and big P&Ls. Why do we believe women can run economy hotels but not the most complex, high-stakes luxury assets? It makes no sense.

Diversity is not a charitable cause. It is a performance driver.

Diversity is not a charitable cause. It is a performance driver. The most diverse teams solve problems better. Period.

I do not want one hundred percent women. I want balance. I want collective intelligence. And I am not done pushing.

You’ve said diversity is not a social initiative, but a leadership one. What does diversity actually look like on your executive team?

Diversity is first and foremost a leadership statement. Even if you are extremely cynical and do not care about gender at all, you still have to acknowledge that the most diverse teams are the most high-performing ones.

My executive team today is incredibly diverse. Different nationalities, different generations, different professional backgrounds. My legal director is Hungarian. My HR leader is Polish. My Chief Operating Officer is Australian, born and raised in Australia, with German and Japanese heritage. We have French team members, Americans, people who have grown up in very different cultures.

When you put all those perspectives together, the way you solve problems completely changes. The discussions are richer. The decisions are stronger. The collective intelligence is much higher.

For me, diversity is not about creating a team of women or a team of men. It is about creating a team that challenges each other, brings different sensitivities to the table, and ultimately performs better. That is true in economy hotels, midscale, and especially in luxury.

Luxury is complex. It requires nuance, judgment, and empathy. You simply cannot deliver that with a homogeneous leadership team.

So what does pushing change actually look like inside the organization?

We work on both sides. With owners and with candidates.

On the owner side, we still face prejudice. Doubts about whether women can really perform in luxury. We counter that with proof. Real performance. When owners meet our female general managers and see the results they deliver, preconceived doubts tend to fall away.

On the candidate side, we fight self-censorship. That quiet voice that tells women they cannot have both career and family. That they are not ready. So we built mentoring, coaching, leadership programs, and our diversity network. It includes men as well as women, because men must be allies. Exclusion cannot be the answer to exclusion.

We also linked diversity KPIs to executive bonuses, long before any regulation. When it becomes measurable, it becomes real.

Maud Bailly at the Sofitel, MGallery & Emblems owners convention in 2025.

When doubts or bias surface, what helps you stay grounded and credible?

Time is your greatest ally. And your figures.

Legitimacy comes from three pillars: figures, clients, and teams.

I always tell women that legitimacy comes from three pillars: figures, clients, and teams. Figures do not lie. If your numbers are strong, it becomes very hard for people to say you do not belong. Clients matter too. In my case, my clients are owners. If they trust you, that is protection.

And then there are your teams. If your teams feel safe, aligned, and proud, you become unshakeable.

When inappropriate comments happen, I call them out calmly. Often with humor. If you explode, you become the problem in the room. So I might simply say, Are we sure this is the right way to speak about people? Then I move on.

You cannot control what others think. You can only control your impact.

As you began to lead Sofitel and MGallery, what had to come first before anything else could change?

Clarity.

For one year, we were very quiet externally and we listened. To general managers. To owners. To doormen. To housekeeping. We asked what they loved. What had disappeared. What felt frustrating.

Luxury is about consistency. Once we defined the brand pillars again, everything followed. Renovations. Exiting properties that could not meet standards.

Partnerships. Culture. Pride.

When I returned recently to Sofitel New York, staff who had been there for twenty-five years took me in their arms. They were proud again. That is the real indicator that recognition is working.

From left: Sofitel, MGallery & Emblems CEO Maud Bailly, Lucknam Park Limited's Chloe Laskaridis and Accor CEO Sébastien Bazin at the opening of Lucknam Park, Emblems Collection, a new luxury hotel which opened in England in November 2025.

Emblems feels like a different expression of luxury. What need was it created to answer?

Quiet luxury.

Emblems was born from owners asking for something more intimate, more residential, more about space and time. Larger rooms. More suites. Cottages and villas. Fewer keys. More privacy.

It is a brand meant for aesthetic travelers. Places where you come not just to visit the destination, but to stay for the experience of the place itself. Refinement. Ritual. Silence.

We plan around sixty Emblems by 2032. But dilution is the enemy. If you launch too fast, you damage the brand before it even lives.

You carry enormous responsibility. How do you make this role sustainable for yourself?

My day starts with my girls. They are five and twelve. That is non-negotiable.

Then the calls begin. Teams has saved my life. I walk a lot, alone, without my phone. We are eaten alive by devices. Walking lets my brain breathe.

And I sleep. I nap. Proper naps. Falling asleep is my real superpower.

Above all, I surround myself with strong teams. I delegate. I empower. I protect my people. When something fails, I step forward. That is how you survive in a role like this.

Maud Bailly with Emily Goldfischer at ILTM in Cannes

At your level, learning has to be intentional. Where do you still go to be challenged?

I stay very close to the field. I speak regularly with our general managers. I created a GM advisory board where people tell us what we do not want to hear.

I also sit on boards outside hospitality. That helps me avoid being glued to one world. And I read constantly, especially outside hospitality. AI. Technology. Society.

A CEO who stops learning becomes dangerous.

Finally, what do you want ambitious women reading hertelier to hear right now?

Stop self-censoring.

You will never feel perfectly ready. Take the risk. Surround yourself with people who are stronger than you. Trust your figures. Trust your clients. Trust your teams.

And remember this: success without impact is empty. If you have power, use it to open doors for others. That is real leadership.