Global Blue Leadership

Thomas W. Farley has served as Independent Chairman of Global Blue since August 2020.

Thomas served as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Far Point Acquisition Corporation, a special purpose acquisition company that successfully completed its merger with Global Blue Group Holding AG in August 2020. Thomas currently serves as the Chief Executive Officer, President, Chairman of the Board and a Director of Far Peak Acquisition Corporation.

From May 2014 to May 2018, Thomas served as President of the NYSE Group of Intercontinental Exchange Inc. (ICE). Thomas joined the NYSE in November 2013 when ICE acquired NYSE Euronext. Prior to becoming President of the NYSE in May 2014, Thomas served as the Chief Operating Officer. Prior to joining the NYSE, Thomas served as Senior Vice President of Financial Markets at ICE, where he oversaw the development of several businesses and initiatives across ICE’s markets. Thomas joined ICE in 2007 as the President and Chief Operating Officer of ICE Futures U.S., formerly the New York Board of Trade. He also represented ICE on Options Clearing Corporation’s board of directors.

Prior to joining ICE, Thomas was President of SunGard Kiodex, a risk management technology provider to the derivatives markets and prior thereto served as the business unit’s Chief Financial Officer and Chief Operating Officer. 

Guoming Cheng has served as a non-executive director of Global Blue since June 2022.

Guoming has been a Senior Director of Ant Group since November 2018.  He joined Alibaba Group in 2015 and successively served various leadership roles including President of AGTech Holding between 2015 and 2018.  Prior to joining Alibaba Group, Guoming held positions at JP Morgan and HSBC.

Mr. Cheng obtained a Bachelor of Economics degree from Fudan University, China.

Tom Klein has served as a Non-Executive Director of Global Blue since June 2022.

Tom is a Senior Managing Director of Certares. Prior to joining Certares, Tom was a Director, CEO and President of Sabre Incorporated, a global technology company serving the travel industry and its subsidiary, Travelocity.com. Prior to being appointed as CEO, Tom held a number of executive positions at Sabre, including President, Executive Vice President and both domestic and international Senior Vice President roles. Tom led the very successful IPO of Sabre in 2014.

Prior to joining Sabre, Tom held various management positions at American Airlines and Consolidated Freightways and has spent 29 years as an operator in the travel sector. He was appointed by the U.S. Secretary of Commerce to serve on the Board of Directors of Brand USA in 2010 where he was reappointed twice and ended his third term in 2017 as Chairman. Tom also served on President Barack Obama’s President’s Advisory Council on Doing Business in Africa. He also serves on the Board of Directors of Avia Solutions Group and is a member of the Investment Committee and the Management Committee of Certares Management LLC. Previously Tom served on the Boards of Directors of Cedar Fair Entertainment, Nirvana Travel & Tourism, and Playa Resorts.

Tom received his Bachelor of Science degree in Business Administration from Villanova University, the USA, where he serves on the Board of Trustees.

Christian Lucas served as Chairman of Global Blue’s board of directors from 2012 to 2020.

Christian is a Managing Director of SilverLake, which he joined in 2010 as co-head of the firm’s activities in Europe, the Middle East, and Africa. Christian is currently Chairman of the Board of Directors of Grupo BC, Meilleurtaux, Silae, and Software AG, Vice Chairman of the Board at Cegid, and a Board member of Exact, and Mirakl. In addition, Christian previously served as a Board member of Soitec and ZPG. He  began his career in strategic consulting at McKinsey & Company and then worked as an investment banker, focusing on technology, digital media, and telecommunications.

From 2004 to 2010, Christian was the Managing Director and Head of the Technology Group at Morgan Stanley.  Mr. Lucas has been awarded the Medal of Knight of the Legion of Honor by France in 2019.

Christian holds an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School, the USA. Prior to this, he studied at ESSEC Graduate School of Management and from the Paris International Law School at the University Panthéon-Assas, both in France.

Eric Meurice has served as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Global Blue since 2018.

Eric served at ASML Holding NV as President and Chief Executive Officer from 2004 to June 2013 and Chairman from July 2013 to March 2014. He served as Executive Vice President of Thomson’s TV division from 2001 to 2004 and as the Vice President and General Manager (Western, Southern and Eastern Europe) of Dell from 1995 to 2001.

Eric holds a master’s degree in Engineering from Ecole Centrale, France, a master’s degree in Economics from Pantheon-Sorbonne University, France, and an M.B.A. from Stanford University, the USA.

Joseph Osnoss has served as a member of Global Blue’s board of directors since 2012.

Joseph joined SilverLake in 2002 and is a Managing Partner. From 2010 to 2014, he was based in London, where he co-led the Firm’s activities in EMEA.

Prior to joining SilverLake, Joseph worked in investment banking at Goldman, Sachs & Co.  Joseph serves as Chairman of the Board of Directors of First Advantage and is a director of Carta, Cegid, Clubessential Holdings, EverCommerce, LightBox, Relativity, and Zuora.

Joseph previously served as Chairman of the Board of Directors of Cast & Crew and was a director of Cornerstone OnDemand, Instinet, Interactive Data, Mercury Payment Systems, Sabre, and Virtu Financial.

Joseph graduated summa cum laude from Harvard College with an A.B. in Applied Mathematics and a citation in French Language. Joseph has remained involved in academics, including as a Visiting Professor in Practice at the London School of Economics; a member of the Dean’s Advisory Cabinet at Harvard’s School of Engineering and Applied Sciences; a participant in The Polsky Center Private Equity Council at the University of Chicago, the USA, and a Trustee of Greenwich Academy.

Ulf Pagenkopf has served as a member of Global Blue's board of directors since 2019.

Ulf is a Senior Investment Leader and Member of Management at Partners Group since 2022. Before joining Partners Group, he spent ten years at SilverLake in London, most recently as a Director in the investment team. Prior to joining SilverLake, Ulf was at Deutsche Bank in the Frankfurt and London offices working in the M&A and Leveraged Debt Capital Markets groups.

Ulf graduated from the European Business School, Oestrich-Winkel, Germany, with a B.Sc. in General Management.

Jacques Stern joined Global Blue in 2015 as the President and Chief Executive Officer. He has served as a member of Global Blue's board of directors since 2014. He has nearly 30 years of experience within large international companies. 

He started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers in 1988 as an auditor. He later joined the Accor Group in 1992, where he held various leadership positions, including Chief Financial Officer and Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Between 2010 and 2015, he was the Chairman and Chief Executive Officer at Edenred. Mr. Stern also serves as non-executive director on the boards of Perkbox and Voyage Prive. 

Jacques also holds a Business degree from the École Supérieure de Commerce de Lille, France.

Dr. Eric Strutz has served as an Independent Non-Executive Director of Global Blue since 2018.

Eric is a member of the board of directors and Chairman of the Risk Committee of HSBC Bank PLC, Chairman of the Audit Committee of HSBC Trinkaus & Burkhardt AG, and a member of the board of directors, Audit Committee and Chairman of the Risk Committee of HSBC Paris.

Eric is also on the board of directors of Partners Group’s portfolio company Techem.  He was the Vice Chairman on Partners Group until May 2021 and Chief Financial Officer and a member of the board of managing directors of Commerzbank AG until March 2012. Prior to joining Commerzbank AG, Eric was employed by the Boston Consulting Group from 1993, where he was Vice President, Director and Partner as from 2000.

Eric studied at the Universities of Erlangen-Nürnberg, Germany, and St. Gallen, Switzerland and holds an M.B.A. from the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, the USA, as well as a Doctorate summa cum laude in Business Administration from the University of St. Gallen.

Laurent Delmas is the Chief Operating Officer Southern Europe and he joined Global Blue in 2016.

Laurent started his career in 1986 at Edenred, where he held various management positions, including Managing Director USA, Managing Director United Kingdom and Managing Director France (2009 to 2016).

Delmas holds a business degree from ESSEC Business School.

Greg Gelhaus has served as the Chief Operating Officer, Asia Pacific and Central Europe since 2021 and was previously the Head of Asia Pacific since 2014.

Prior to joining Global Blue, Greg worked at the Kirkham Group based in Singapore where he was the Group Finance and Operations Director.

Greg started his career at PricewaterhouseCoopers (now FTI Consulting) in New York in 1998 as a consultant in their Business Recovery Services group. He has also worked for Marakon Associates in the US and in Europe where he was an Engagement Manager. Greg has also been a Director at Alvarez & Marsal within their European Restructuring Group.

He has an MBA from the Wharton School in the USA and a Bachelor of Business Administration in Accounting from the University of Michigan in the USA.

Pier Francesco Nervini joined Global Blue in 2004 as the Chief Operating Officer Northern Europe and Global Accounts since 2014.

He joined Global Blue as Managing Director for Added Value Payment Solutions in Italy and later held the positions of Managing Director for Global Blue Italy, Vice President Global Accounts and Head of Commercial Europe.

Prior to joining Global Blue, Pier worked at Philips and Dun & Bradstreet where he held various management positions.

Pier holds a degree in Marketing from the Università degli Studi di Firenze.

Fabio Ferreira has served as the Chief Technology Officer since joining Global Blue in 2015.

He has over 20 years of experience within information technology leadership positions.

He specialises in information technology architecture redesign as well as the management of mission critical applications.

He started his career at Ambev in 1995 and he held various leadership positions at different Brazilian companies during the early years. Fabio later joined the Accor Group where he held several positions, including Chief Information Officer Latin America for Accor Hotels. From 2012 to 2015, he held the position of Chief Information Officer Latin America at Edenred. Fabio has a bachelor’s degree in Computer Science and an MBA from the University of Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Tomas Mostany joined Global Blue in 2002. He has been the Senior Vice President Strategy and Chief Product Officer since 2015.

Throughout his career, he taken on different roles at Global Blue, including Country Manager Argentina, Managing Director of Italy and Regional Manager for Southern Europe.

Prior to joining Global Blue, he held various management positions within Kodak and Havas.

He has an MBA from the Instituto para el Desarrollo Empresarial de la Argentina and a degree in Industrial Engineering from the Instituto Tecnológico de Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Jeremy Taylor has served as the Senior Vice President Operations since 2014.

He joined Global Blue in 1999 as the Operations and New Markets Manager and has since held various management positions at Global Blue across different geographies.

He recently led the creation of Global Blue's central operations center in Slovakia, where he is currently based.

Virginie Alem joined Global Blue in 2019. She has been serving as the Senior Vice President Marketing, Communications and Customer Value Creation since 2021.

Her professional background includes seven years of experience within financial communication and investor relations at Accor and Edenred. Following this, she joined the Italian Edenred Executive Committee to manage Business and Product Development from 2015 to 2019.

Jorge Casal has been the Senior Vice President New Markets, Public Affairs & Chief Operating Officer Americas since 2015.

Before his current position, he was the Senior Vice President Tax Free Shopping for seven years. He joined Global Blue in 1999 as the Country Manager Argentina.

Throughout his career at Global Blue, he has held various management positions including: Country Manager Spain and UK, Area Manager Iberia, Argentina and Mexico and Vice President Sales UK and Mediterranean and Latin America.

Damian Cecchi has served as the Senior Vice President Added Value Payment Solutions since 2017. He joined Global Blue in 2016 following the acquisition of Travelex Currency Select, where he worked as a General Manager.

Damian has over 20 years experience within the payments industry across different companies. He began his career in 1995 at Hypercom where he was an Account and Business Development Manager.

Prior to joining Currency Select, Damian worked at the Australia and New Zealand Banking Group (ANZ) where he was a Manager Chip Card and Merchant Services. He also worked at the National Australia Bank (NAB) as a Associate Director, Transaction.

Damian has a bachelor’s degree in business from Monash University, Australia and an MBA from the Sydney Business School, University of Wollongong, Australia.