Pierre-Etienne FRANC

Chief Executive Officer, Hy24, Co-founder and Chairman, FiveT Hydrogen

Pierre-Etienne Franc is considered as one of the leading architects of the hydrogen economy. He was the founder of the Hydrogen Council, which brings together the world’s top energy, transportation and infrastructure multinationals active in the sector. After leading Hydrogen activities for Air Liquide, Franc co-founded the FiveT Hydrogen investment platform in 2021, and currently serves as the Chief Executive of Hy24, a joint venture managing the world’s first clean hydrogen infrastructure fund. Since the beginning of his career, Franc has built a development approach driven by a belief in the power of alliances, joint ventures, and co-development. It has helped to open new businesses (co-generation), new territories (Russia, China, Brazil in the steel markets), new markets (hydrogen energy, IT), and new technologies (electrolysis, hydrogen tanks, fuel cells in forklifts).In 1994, he wrote his first book, with Christopher Hogg focusing on the importance of customer management, which was published by Dunod. On the occasion of the COP21 in 2015, Franc published a book that detailed his vision for the hydrogen economy, with a preface by Pascal Lamy. His 2017 “Entreprise et bien commun” is a reflection on the role of business in improving society, with a preface by Gaël Giraud.Franc graduated in 1993 from France’s HEC business school, where he was awarded the HEC Foundation Prize and the second prize of the Ernst & Young Foundation for his final thesis on industrial joint ventures.

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