Toulon hire former journalist Pesenti as executive director

Toulon have hired a heavy-hitting media mogul as their executive director, who is set to take charge of strategic development at the Top 14 side. François Pesenti had already been working as a consultant with the struggling giants, where a more formal and wide-reaching role has been confirmed.

The transition to new owner Bernard Lemaître, who took over in 2021, has been a rocky one. Toulon have – however – climbed from the bottom of the Top 14 table to 9th in recent weeks, allaying fears that the unthinkable could happen and they’d be relegated.

Pesenti will lead the entire “business” department of the club and will continue to ensure its strategic development, the club said in a statement.

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Pesenti began his career as a journalist at RTL, before taking over the management of sports at popular French media outlet RMC in 2001.

He became Managing Director of RMC Sport in 2008, where he created and developed the agency and then the television channels and more generally the brand RMC Sport, until leaving in 2019.

Pesenti said he was “very happy to be part of the Rouge & Noire team. This club has an extraordinary history and immense potential to develop. We have many projects for the coming years, the main lines of which we will present shortly.

“It is with great enthusiasm and motivation that I join Bernard Lemaître, Frédéric Bir and all the RCT teams to accompany the club to the heights of international rugby”.

Currently an advisor and producer at the head of his company CLP, he is also a member of the Strategy Committee of the streaming platform Sportall.