Biography

After graduating from École Centrale Engineering School and ESSEC Business School, Serge Hayat set up his first company that specialized in integrating innovative audiovisual systems for corporations and broadcast companies.

He developed it to have a EUR100 million turnover and 350 people company that is listed on the French stock exchange. Serge, then, co-founded a start-up incubator for hi-tech and media companies and sold it to Société Générale a few years later.

Serge Hayat is one of the main financiers of cinema and television in France. He is the chairman of the leading Cinemage Soficas (tax shelter investment funds), which he co-founded in 2006.

He is also in charge of the media vehicles of 123 Venture, which has had a film industry participation totaling 100 MEUR in more than 300 films - including French academy awards (150+ nominations, 30+ Césars) and Cannes, Berlin, Venice awards winning films (60+ selections, 15+ awards, including the 2015 Palme d'Or Deehpan). Serge structured specific financing for top independent French distributors (Mars Distribution, Le Pacte or Wild Bunch).

In 2009, Serge Hayat co-founded Peopleforcinema, a website which allows net users to invest in and discover the movie industry and provides distributors with new tools to promote films. Peopleforcinema was successfully sold to Ulule, the European crowdfunding leader, in 2013.

In 2011, Serge Hayat acquired Cinéart (second French talent agency) with two partners and restructured it into Talentbox. The agency was successfully sold in 2014.

In 2015, Serge Hayat becomes a shareholder of Federation Entertainment, a major European TV series producer and distributor (The bureau for Canal +, Marseille for Netflix).

Also in 2015, Serge Hayat and Clovis Cornillac partnered to launch the production company, Fair Play, which released the movie Un peu, beaucoup, aveuglément.

In 2017, Serge Hayat partnered with Yves Darondeau, Emmanuel Priou, and Philippe de Bourbon to launch ((Echo Studio)), the first European film studio dedicated exclusively to the production and distribution of films that address social and environmental issues.

Serge Hayat is the president of the Media & Entertainment Chair, which he founded at ESSEC Business School in 2006. He's been teaching there for 25 years (corporate finance, entrepreneurship, and media economics).

Serge Hayat is the co-author of Précis de Mathématiques Financières (Dalloz, 1993), Paroles de Dirigeants (Eyrolles, 2004), L'entreprise, un acteur clé de la société (Autrement, 2006). He recently wrote his first novel, L'empire en héritage (Allary Editions, 2015).
- IMDb mini biography by: Damien Zoccola