With a long career in the media industry Arnaud de Puyfontaine – who has been an executive at UK publisher Emap and US publisher Hearst – joined Vivendi in early 2014 as senior EVP in charge of media and content, and became chairman of the management board – CEO – in June 2014.
In late 2015 de Puyfontaine told the Wall Street Journal in an interview that Vivendi was becoming frustrated with Telecom Italia’s management and the other shareholders.
“As a shareholder what we want is alignment,” he told the WSJ. “We want to see alignment between CEO, chairman, shareholders and management team and the board. This has not always been the case.” De Puyfontaine became a director of Telecom Italia – which is now branded as TIM – shortly after that interview.
Telecom Italia announced his appointment as deputy chairman as the fourth and last paragraph in an announcement that the next board meeting would be on May 13, eight days later than planned.
