Twenty-six years inside the Pinault family office: what shaped Westwick's founder

Our founder spent twenty-six years at the single family office of the Pinault family, watching a two-billion portfolio become a fifty-billion empire. What shaped him most was not the growth — it was how the boss led.

Gilles Erulin, our founder, spent twenty-six years at Financière Pinault, the single family office of the Pinault family. Over those years, the portfolio grew from roughly two billion to fifty billion. The formative element of that experience, in his own telling, was not the growth. It was the man behind it.

He joined at thirty-three, after a two-hour interview and twenty-four hours to decide. The job description was a single sentence: "empty Mr Pinault's desk every morning." The phrase "family office" was not yet in common usage. The one-page employment contract made more sense in retrospect than at the time.

François Pinault was a genuine leader. He delegated fully, and he gave his people on the front line maximum flexibility to execute. Across those years, Gilles led a range of major transactions — a friendly public-to-private acquisition of Christie's, an aborted takeover of Worms et Cie, an equity investment, financing, and listing of Ipsos, and many others. It was, as he puts it, a very fast lift, behind a mentor who was intense and uncompromising.

Gilles saw, ran, or carried almost everything a family office can experience in the life of a family. Growth, of course — and a great deal of it. But also failed deals, aborted takeovers, regulatory scrutiny, hostile litigation, the pressure of running large operating subsidiaries, generational handover, succession planning, internal governance reform, and the quieter day-to-day discipline of holding a family office together when no single transaction is making the news. Few people in this industry have lived that range from the inside, end to end, in a single seat.

It was that experience — as much troubleshooter as executive — that gave rise to Westwick Melrose & Cromwell. As word spread, other families began calling him directly, asking for help on situations that needed to be resolved quickly and discreetly: a CEO out overnight, a deal in trouble, a generational transition that had stalled, a dispute that should never have been allowed to start. The pattern was clear enough that the firm followed naturally. Gilles is one of very few executives with that depth of family office experience to choose to stay actively in service to families, rather than withdraw into board seats or pure advisory work. That choice, and the expertise behind it, is what makes Westwick what it is.

The principles forged in those years at Financière Pinault — loyalty, drive, a service mindset, clarity under pressure — are the principles Westwick was built to carry to other families.

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