The board of French hotels company Accor SA (AC.FR) Wednesday said it is replacing its Chief Executive Gilles Pelisson, who oversaw the company's split from its vouchers business, with Denis Hennequin, Chief Executive of McDonald's Corp. (MCD) in Europe following "strategic divergences" between the board and Pelisson.

Over the past five years at the helm of Accor--the company behind the Motel6 budget chain in the U.S., Sofitel luxury hotels and the Novotel brand--Pelisson, 53 years old, has restructured the company by selling off non-core assets and hotel properties, replacing them with long-term leases, and separating the highly cash-generative vouchers business into a separately listed company, Edenred (EDEN.FR).

But at a board meeting Tuesday, the board and Pelisson "recognized the strategic divergences between them, leading them to organize the departure of Gilles Pelisson," the company said in a statement. Pelisson wasn't available to comment.

A person close to the board said the two parties disagreed on how to accelerate the company's growth. Pelisson "pushed specific acquisition projects," that the board didn't agree with, this person said.

While Pelisson was well placed to manage the transformation of Accor, the board is now looking for someone with a different set of skills to take the company to the next level of development, another person close to the company said. This will include an ongoing focus on the restructuring of property assets with a particular emphasis on developing its network of hotels operated through franchise agreements, this person said.

Hennequin, 52, has been at McDonald's since 1984 and oversaw an increase in business volumes making Europe a strong contributer to group profit, which made him an attractive candidate for the job, the person said.

"He did not simply copy and paste the McDonald's U.S. offer but gave it a European dimension," the person also said. He added Hennequin's "strong grasp of human resources issues--making McDonald's an attractive place to work--and ability to cultivate relationships," would be important for the next stage of Accor's development.

Accor's 11-member board includes four representatives of its key shareholders, the U.S. private equity firm Colony Capital and European investment company Eurazeo (RF.FR).

A specialist in managing property investments, Colony Capital is also known in France for its role in wresting control of retail giant Carrefour SA (CA.FR) from a historic family shareholder two years ago, and has been an investor in Accor since 2005.

Colony was involved in the choice of Pelisson to replace Accor's previous chief executive that same year. While Pelisson is a nephew of one of Accor's founders, his appointment was seen as a management upset at the time.

Indeed, Colony and Eurazeo's role has been controversial at Accor. Early last year, five Accor board members and board chairman Serge Weinberg resigned in disagreement with the two funds who merged the position of chief executive and chairman.

Under Hennequin's direction, Accor will move into "a new phase in its development, during which the definition of priorities and their execution will be key factors in its success," the board said in its statement.

Hennequin, who has served on Accor's board since last year, will take up the new position on Jan 11. In the interim, Pelisson will continue to act as Chairman of the board of directors.

The announcement of Pelisson's coming departure took many by surprise.

"It would have been less surprising if the departure had been announced over a year ago," when the company was contemplating splitting into two separate companies rather than at a time when business is improving, said an analyst who declined to be named. The analyst said Pelisson's comments before the decision to split the company suggested he had been less enthusiastic about the move than key shareholders.

And business is improving at Accor. The company increased its profit target for the year after third quarter sales showed demand for hotels returned.

Shares in the company have risen over 16% over the past three months, outpacing a 2.5% rise in the Paris CAC-40-index on expectations for a bounce-back in the sector. Accor shares closed Wednesday up 0.5% to EUR29.82.

-By Mimosa Spencer, Dow Jones Newswires; +33 1 40 17 1773; mimosa.spencer@dowjones.com