Air Liquide CEO Benoit Potier to head European industrialist forum

Benoit Potier, Chairman and CEO of Air Liquide, has replaced Leif Johansson, Chairman of Ericsson and AstraZeneca, as Chairman of the European Round Table of Industrialists from June 1, 2014. The European Round Table of Industrialists (ERT), created in 1983, is a forum of 52 leaders of major companies of European parentage. These companies are drawn from a wide range of industry sectors in 18 European countries, and have a combined turnover exceeding Euro 1,300 billion, sustaining around 6.8 million jobs in the region. They invest more than Euro 51 billion annually in Research & Development (R&D), largely in Europe; which is equivalent to 18% of total EU R&D expenditure.
 
Benoit Potier, who joined Air Liquide in 1981 as an Engineer in the R&D Division and has held different positions in the Group in the Strategic Department as well as in Operations prior to being appointed Chief Executive Officer of Air Liquide in 1997 and Chairman and CEO in May 2006, joined ERT in 2007 and was elected ERT Vice-Chairman in 2010. Potier graduated from the Ecole Centrale des Arts et Manufactures (Paris, France) in 1979, and completed his executive education within the Wharton International Forum and the Advanced Management program at INSEAD.