Patrick Pouyanné was born in Petite-Synthe, France, in 1963, trained at the École polytechnique and the Corps des Mines and served in senior advisory roles in the French government before joining Total in 1997. He became chief executive in 2014 following the death of his predecessor in an accident, and chairman in 2015.
Under his leadership the company has been renamed TotalEnergies and reorganized around five businesses: oil, gas, electricity, renewables and chemicals, with a stated ambition to become an integrated multi-energy company and a global player in renewable power generation and trading.
Pouyanné is among the most outspoken European energy executives on the difficulty of the transition, frequently arguing that hydrocarbons and renewables will need to be planned together for several decades to come if the transition is to be both affordable and politically sustainable.