The house
Laurent Frydlender
Twenty-five years running luxury businesses, and close to thirty years with the New York fire service. The codes on one side, crisis management on the other.
The codes of luxury
Born in 1966, Laurent Frydlender began his career in luxury and cosmetics: Benetton Cosmétiques, I Vinci di Lamborghini, then Edelmann France, where he led premium-range development for Chanel, L’Oréal, Cartier and Estée Lauder.
He went on to found the French subsidiary of HCP Packaging, winning LVMH, Chanel, Clarins and L’Oréal. He became managing director of Farevacolor, part of the Fareva group, then led Quadpack France and Yonwoo Europe in turn.
At Yonwoo he restructured the subsidiary after a full audit, moved the head office to Paris, renewed the teams and multiplied turnover tenfold in seven years.
Chief of Operations, FDNY
For close to thirty years Laurent Frydlender has been an active member of the New York fire service, rising through every rank to Chief of Operations, the equivalent of colonel.
In France he has served as a lieutenant-colonel in the citizens’ reserve of the Gendarmerie nationale and as a volunteer firefighter. He holds an MBA in security management from the École de Guerre, at the military academy of the Gendarmerie nationale, and is a doctoral candidate at the Sorbonne-Panthéon.
That background is what gives weight to the round-the-clock commitment. A flooded villa on a December Sunday, a guest taken ill, a break-in: these are situations he has handled elsewhere, with heavier stakes. The escalation protocol of the house is written in his hand.
Entrepreneur
He founded Fryd Food & Drink, dedicated to premium food products in France and the United States, then in 2020 Fryd Services Plus, a building services company he chairs.
A former foreign trade adviser to France, he speaks regularly on strategy and cross-cultural management. He is fluent in French and English, and speaks Spanish and German at an intermediate level.