Late CEO Christophe de Margerie built a large African portfolio
The Board of Directors of TOTAL has named Patrick Pouyanné its Chief Executive.
He succeeds Christophe de Margerie, who died tragically in an airplane accident in Moscow on the night of October 20-21, 2014.
Pouyanné started work in TOTAL 17 years ago, as Chief Administrative Officer of the company’s Angolan subsidiary. He then became Group Representative in Qatar and CEO of TOTAL E&P Qatar in 1999. In August 2002, he was named Senior Vice President, Finance, Economics and Information Systems in Exploration & Production. In January 2006, he became Senior Vice President, Strategy, Business Development and R&D in Exploration & Production. Patrick Pouyanné has been a member of TOTAL’s Management Committee since May 2006. In March 2011, he was appointed Senior Vice President, Chemicals and Senior Vice President, Petrochemicals. In January 2012, Patrick Pouyanné was appointed President, Refining & Chemicals and member of the Executive Committee.
The board also named Thierry Desmarest as interim Chairman of the Board of Directors, until he retires in 2015 in accordance with the age limits stipulated in the Group’s bylaws. “The positions of Chairman of the Board of Directors and Chief Executive Officer will then be recombined”.
The late de Margerie was bullish on African assets, buying into Cote d’Ivoire and Uganda and commissioning a string of FPSOs in Angola and Nigeria. He was appointed to TOTAL’s Executive Committee in 1999, after a quarter of a century working for the company. He was named CEO of TOTAL on February 14, 2007, and Chairman and CEO on May 21, 2010. “He dedicated his brilliant career to the development of the Group, enabling its glowing success in the oil and gas sector and more recently in solar energy”, the company notes in a statement. “The exceptional human and professional qualities that Christophe de Margerie exhibited during his time at TOTAL were largely responsible for the success of the Group”.
