New directors have recently been appointed at UIC Headquarters according to decisions announced at the General Assembly in St Petersburg last December:
Mrs Sandra Géhenot, previously UIC Senior Freight Advisor in charge in particular of Combined Transport issues, was appointed new Director of the UIC Freight Department from November 2016. She succeeded Mr Hans-Günther Kersten who returned to Deutsche Bahn AG.
Mrs Laurence Simon from SNCF was appointed new Director of Human Resources at UIC. She succeeds Mrs Mélanie Gonzalez from January 2017.
Mrs Marie Plaud, who was Deputy Director of Communications at UIC – and Coordinator for North America – has been appointed new UIC Director of the Communications Department from January 2017. She succeeds Paul Véron at the head of the UIC Communications team.
Mr Paul Véron, who was in charge of the UIC Communications Department for many years, will have a temporary mission as Director attached to the Director General, in charge of further developing and tightening relationships with members and partner organisations, and in parallel further act as the UIC Coordinator for the Middle-East Region.
Sandra Géhénot, BA Languages, MSC Business, worked as Key Account Manager for Railfreight Distribution (international freight division of British Rail) and EWS (now DB Cargo) for 10 years before joining UIC in 2000 as Senior Freight Advisor where she managed many projects with special focus on combined transport and rail operation. She was also in charge of corridor development through the ECCO project for European Rail Freight Corridors and the Global Team of Experts (GTE) for transcontinental developments. In this context she has collaborated regularly with many international partners such as UNECE, OTIF, CIT, UIRR, BIC…
She was appointed UIC Freight Director in November 2016.
Sandra is a Belgian national, born in Italy, brought up in a Franco-German family. A native speaker of French, she also speaks English, Italian and German.
She is married, with one daughter.
Marie Plaud, a graduate of the Institute of Political Sciences in Toulouse, with a Master’s Degree in Global Management from the University of Paris-Dauphine, started her career in the Communications field at the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia in The Hague with the task of developing the internal information system of the Court.
She joined UIC at the end of 2003 with the objective of setting up the “Media Rail Info” information system, following a request by the Communication Directors of UIC Members to intensify regular exchange of data and information with international media. She then participated in all of UIC’s communications activities and was gradually involved in defining and implementing the association’s communications actions. In particular, she managed the development of an information system aimed at members and institutional partners highlighting UIC projects and activities on a weekly basis – the “UIC eNews” newsletter.
More recently she was involved in the coordination of the “Train to Paris” international communications campaign organised on behalf of the railways as part of the COP 21 United Nations’ Climate Change Conference.
Marie Plaud was appointed Deputy Director of Communications of UIC in January 2015 and Director of Communications from January 2017.
An engineer by training, Laurence Simon, aged 50, has been Human Resources Director at UIC since September 2016.
With specialist expertise in rolling stock maintenance and management of SNCF’s rail fleet, Laurence Simon has held supervisory positions over the last 23 years in six maintenance centres in the Paris region as well as within the regional and rolling stock management teams. In particular, she contributed to the technical developments and entry into commercial service of the TGV Nord Europe, Eurostar, Thalys and Midi Méditerranée services.
Following her position as Director of Villeneuve Maintenance Centre, Laurence Simon joined the SNCF management team for ethical and compliance issues in 2013 to share as widely as possible the values and ethical principles of SNCF Group, which she has always been committed to putting in place throughout her career in the company, and in particular in her roles as manager.
In September 2016, Laurence joined the ranks of UIC to provide her experience in management and human resources – whilst also taking a keen interest in the technical matters which form the core business of UIC – with the aim of working with the members on opportunities for international exchange for their staff.
She is the mother of three children.
