Franck Verschelle is CEO & Founder of Advantail celebrating 15 years in February 2023. Advantail is the French leading operator, managing seven outlet centers in France and 1 in Switzerland, but also six commercial centers & retail parks. His philosophy: Verschellen believes the expertise developed by the Outlet industry can benefit to the entire retail sector. He is also convinced sustainability & consumption evolution is deeply impacting & transforming the business. Therefore, Advantail has engaged his team, and partners into a complete transformation, and Advantail is about to be the first retail property manager certified BCorp.
Before creating Advantail, Verschelle spent five years with McArthurGlen Group, as France General manager, and before Lyreco group, and Kering. Franck has always been very active on promoting the retail & real estate industry: as board member of the French Commercial Center association (FACT), member of Aproma (French Property Manager association) and member of Mapic Steering Committee. Advantail is a property manager for Unibail-Rodamco-Westfield, Klépierre, Primonial REIM, Resolution Property, Procimmo SA, Sofidy, Arkea et AEW. Apart from Outlets, Verschellen’s passions are: sailing, rugby and wine. Reasons why he lives in Southwest of France.
Jean-Christophe Bretxa has been working with commercial real estate for over 30 years. He was appointed Managing Director and Chairman of METRO PROPERTIES Mall & Highstreet in January 2023. This branch is dedicated to shopping centers and high street properties. Before the split into two entities, he has been the CEO of METRO PROPERTIES from June 2012 until December 2022. He joined METRO PROPERTIES as Regional Director (Western Europe) in June 2011. Prior to this, Bretxa worked for the international property company Redevco, where his last position was Managing Director for France and Switzerland. He worked at Axa Reim until 2006, where he held overall responsibility for 12 real estate funds. Bretxa began his career in 1988 as Director of Property Services with the French department store company Printemps. He then held various real estate management positions within the French hypermarket chain Continent (Promodès) and at the retail giant Carrefour. He received his civil engineer´s degree from Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées and graduated from Ecole des Hautes Etudes Commerciales in Paris.
ACROSS is looking forward to an even closer cooperation and stimulating exchange of ideas and information.
About the ACROSS Advisory Board
The ACROSS Advisory Board was established in mid-2016. From day one, the Board’s stated goal has been to offer its expertise in topic formulation. Over the years, the board has not only grown, but it has also become more interdisciplinary, just like the retail real estate world itself. In addition to shopping center managers, the board includes architects, retail experts, financial experts, PropTech professionals, consultants, and outlet managers. The mix of expertise from the various areas that our industry has to offer makes the ACROSS board unique. That is not only due to the fact that the mixed-use asset class is on the rise, but also because we all know that collaboration and thinking outside of the box are essential to our business. The ACROSS Advisory Board is currently comprised of 28 members. That gives us the opportunity to closely monitor current trends and changes within the industry and to be able to classify them.
