Laurent Bonnaure Appointed to the Global Sales & Marketing Division for Manitou group Words: Lori HeideckerManitou group, the world leader in all-terrain material handling trucks, is announcing the appointment of Laurent Bonnaure as Executive Vice President Global Sales & Marketing and member of the Executive Committee. Responsible for the group's worldwide sales and marketing strategy, he will be overseeing all of the Manitou group distribution subsidiaries as well as the Global Sales and Marketing teams and will manage the global dealer network. Laurent Bonnaure will continue the development of the Manitou group initiated under the responsibility of François-Frédéric Piffard, who will remain head of Sales & Marketing until the end of 2016. With an engineering Master's degree from the École Centrale Paris graduate school as well as a DEA (Master of Advanced Studies) in Energetics, Laurent Bonnaure completed his studies with a Master of Sciences from MIT (USA). Both French and Canadian, he has held numerous senior management positions in the United States, the United Kingdom and France, spending 11 years at the Elis Group before taking on the role of Deputy Managing Director and Board Member of the Fraikin Group for 8 years. There, he also held the positions of Executive Vice President International, Chief Operating Officer, and more recently Chief Executive Development Officer. Between now and the end of 2016, Laurent Bonnaure will be meeting all of the group's internal actors and external partners in tandem with François-Frédéric Piffard, and will help draw up the 2017 budget. François-Frédéric Piffard will officially hand over the reins to Laurent Bonnaure on December 31, 2016 when the latter retires after 26 years devoted to the global development of Manitou Group. "Manitou is an extraordinary company that is expanding in global markets and territories that are still open to new growth opportunities thanks to its high-added-value products, the continued innovations in its products and services, and its employees and dealers who are proud of the company and its products. Continuing to strengthen our global leadership and constantly improving our customers' satisfaction are the main challenges for the coming years. Building on the remarkable work of François-Frédéric Piffard, I will be concentrating my efforts to accelerate Manitou's development and taking on these new challenges, alongside our teams and our entire network", says Laurent Bonnaure.