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Pierre-Yves Gerbeau, 21 years ago, during his tenure in charge of the Millennium Dome
Credit: PA
Pierre-Yves Gerbeau is twice the man he used to be when he was parachuted in to rescue the Millennium Dome back in 2000. Ruefully, the spiky-haired Frenchman smiles and pats his soft navy gilet, its badge a reminder of his days as an international ice hockey player. “I wear the gilet because it hides a bit of the belly,” he says. “The problem is that I work like a dog and I can’t exercise. But I can’t fight all the fights.”
At the moment, Gerbeau (“the Gerbil”, as he was dubbed by the British press) is engaged in the most ambitious fight of his career – turning an industrial wasteland on the Thames Estuary in Kent into a global leisure destination by 2024. The walls of his new offices in Mayfair are decorated with images of transformation. At a rough cost of £3.5 billion, more than 1,000 acres of the Swanscombe Peninsula will be turned into a mecca for thrill-seekers