Vocation : Business : Top executive

Jean Gandois, AM (7 May 1930 – 7 August 2020) was a French businessman.

Pierre Dreyfus (18 November 1907, Paris — 25 December 1994, Paris) was a high French civil servant who in 1955 became a wealthy businessman.
Between 1947 and 1955, he occupied senior administrative positions in the Ministry of Industry and Commerce, and in 1951 he became 'directeur de cabinet' at the ministry. Between 1948 and 1955, Dreyfus combined his civil service duties with the vice-presidency of the newly nationalised Renault auto business. On 11 February 1955 Pierre Lefaucheux died in a road accident and Dreyfus was appointed CEO of Renault. He retained the position until his retirement from the company in 1975.
Like Lefaucheux, Dreyfus secured his reputation in the top job at Renault by overseeing the launch and production of a model developed under his predecessor: in this case the commercial success was that of the Renault Dauphine. By the end of 1958, with Dreyfus less than three years into his time at the top, a million Renault 4CVs and half a million Dauphines had been sold. The following year, 1959, Renault ranked as the world's sixth largest auto-maker. The collapse of North American demand for the Dauphine triggered a crisis for the company that was well-publicised, especially in the United States, with unsold Dauphines on North American docksides adding to the half million unsold Detroit built products clogging the US auto-market by the end of 1960: for Renault salvation arrived just in time in the form of the Renault 4, developed under Dreyfus and built at the rate of 1,000 cars a day by the end of 1962. During Dreyfus's twenty years in charge, Renault went on to consolidate its position as France's top selling car maker, gaining particular recognition in the 1960s for popularizing front wheel drive, hatchback sedans across Europe, most notably the 4, 5 and 16 models.
During the early years of the Mitterrand presidency, Dreyfus became active on the political scene, serving briefly as Industry Minister between June 1981 and June 1982 under prime minister Pierre Mauroy.
Pierre Dreyfus was not related either to Alfred Dreyfus, famous because of the 'Dreyfus Affair' effectively publicised by Émile Zola, nor to the race-driver Pierre Louis-Dreyfus.

Paul Barril (13 April 1946 in Vinay, Isère) is a former officer of the French Gendarmerie Nationale. He authored several books about his military career, touching sensitive political subjects of the Mitterrand era.
Barril was a gendarme until 1995. He was the second officer of the GIGN Special Forces unit for 10 years, before being involved in the creation of the Counterterrorist Cell of the Élysée during François Mitterrand's first mandate from 1981 to 1988. Since then, he has led several private security companies. He has been in the centre of controversies for his role in Africa, particularly in Rwanda during the Rwandan genocide in 1994 during which extremist Hutus mass exterminated hundreds of thousands of ethnic Tutsis and moderate Hutus.

Giancarlo Parretti (born 23 October 1941) is an Italian financier.In 1989, he took over Cannon Film Group Inc. from Menahem Golan and Yoram Globus. Almost immediately, he made plans to take over the storied French studio Pathé, and changed Cannon's name to Pathé Communications. However, the French government blocked his bid due to concerns about his background.Undaunted, Parretti bought Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer in 1990 for $1.2 billion, using money borrowed from a Dutch subsidiary of Crédit Lyonnais and contingent on future profits financing the purchase from mogul Kirk Kerkorian. Parretti then merged the former Cannon with the MGM purchase to create the short-lived MGM-Pathé Communications.
Under Parretti's control, MGM released almost no films (one victim being the James Bond franchise), while Parretti enjoyed a Hollywood mogul lifestyle. He fired most of the accounting staff and appointed his 21-year-old daughter to a senior financial post. He used company money for presents to several girlfriends, including a former runner-up for Miss Universe. His reign at MGM became the basis for the film Get Shorty, which was produced by MGM.
In 1991, his ownership dissolved in a flurry of lawsuits and a default to Crédit Lyonnais, and Parretti faced securities fraud charges in the United States and Europe.In March 1999, he was found guilty of misuse of corporate funds and fraud and he was sentenced in absentia to four years in prison and fined 1 million francs by a Paris court.

Sir David Rowat Barclay (27 October 1934 – 10 January 2021) and Sir Frederick Hugh Barclay (born 27 October 1934), commonly referred to as the "Barclay Brothers" or "Barclay Twins", were British billionaires. They were identical twin brothers and, until the death of David in 2021, had joint business interests primarily in media, retail and property.
The Sunday Times Rich List of 2020 estimated their wealth at £7 billion. They earned a reputation for avoiding publicity and have often been described as reclusive.
David's son, Aidan, manages their UK businesses. Their businesses have been accused of tax avoidance, by placing assets under ownership of companies registered abroad and controlled through trusts. Their Press Holdings company owns Apollo and The Spectator magazines and, through a wholly owned subsidiary (Press Acquisitions Limited), they also own Telegraph Group Limited, parent company of The Daily Telegraph and The Sunday Telegraph.In 1993, the brothers bought the lease of the island of Brecqhou, one of the smallest of the Channel Islands, just off the coast of Sark.

Ernest J. Gallo (March 18, 1909 – March 6, 2007) was an American businessman and philanthropist. Gallo co-founded the E & J Gallo Winery in Modesto, California.