– Our governance –

Marie Saglio starts with: “I really appreciate French brands and it’s important for me to work on products that have a direct impact on our lives!”

So, which products would she display as “meaningful” in a retrospective of her career? First off, the complete collection of Lesieur oil bottles. They are a source of great pride, as Lesieur was her last position before joining Saipol in April 2024. She spent 6 years as CEO of this French heritage brand, so she greatly appreciates what Avril Group does. At her previous position, achievements include launching responsible oils, Lesieur Ma Popote and acquisition of stakes in the start-ups Hari&Co and Italians do it better. “Feeding people is the noblest of jobs,” she says.

At Avril, the values and solutions applied to Serve the Earth, the company’s purpose, reflect her own values.

Next, she would display the packaging for Boursin. Perhaps her guilty pleasure? Not only that, but a reminder of her early days at Unilever. “I loved working on the marketing of this product,” she says. She would also be sure to include the iconic blue-capped crystal Bic pen. She joined Bic in 2003 as European Marketing Director and was Managing Director of Bic France and Europe from 2008 to 2018.

This diversity of values and expertise, attested to by the Great Place To Work certification, is one that the company intends to promote.

Marie Saglio joined Saipol on 2 April 2024 to direct the company.

Her role on the Management Committee is to continue to implement the company’s strategy and promote Saipol’s brands and businesses.

Natacha Bidna, Saipol’s Finance and Administration Director, is bursting with energy! Her communicative energy is clear in her ambition to move forward as a team, hand in hand with each and every one of her employees. Her motto? “We are part of an ecosystem, and it is the whole that makes it successful. You only succeed if everyone succeeds!” She attributes her success to the people who have worked alongside and inspired her. Her strength also lies in her resilience in the face of challenges, and her insatiable thirst for learning.

One striking example is when she took up the role of financial controller for a British subsidiary of Avril without speaking a word of English. For her, there is no alternative. “You pick up the language very quickly when you have no other choice,” she said.

Natacha was born and raised in the south of Ukraine, and moved to France in 2005. She obtained a master’s degree in industrial management at the ESA in Angers, mastered perfect French as taught by her mother, a teacher, as well a Ukrainian diploma in chartered accountancy. She is proud of her origins and her rural roots: “Back home, everyone is linked to the land in order to feed themselves, and I’m delighted to continue to serve this land in my professional life,” she stated.

In France, she began her career with Lactalis before joining the Axéreal cooperative group, as head of Commercial Management Control. She then joined Saipol in 2018, in charge of management control for the biodiesel business. Two years later, she took over the administrative and financial management of three Avril subsidiaries: Kerfoot, Novastel and Lecico. In 2022, she then returned to Saipol’s Finance Department as Head of Management Control. Following this experience, she became Deputy Finance Director in September 2024.

She undertook a new direction on 1 November 2024; she now manages Saipol’s finances to support the company’s development strategy. “I remain as the co-pilot, supporting the management committee and company,” she said. Her message is clear: “Finance is not an end in and of itself, it’s just another service we provide to society, to help us achieve our goals together”.

From fine chemistry to heavy chemistry, then green chemistry, Ludovic Boulais’ career path is much more than a question of chemistry. He joined Saipol in August 2021 and applies the constant: Pq² = Sp²+Slr². Independent of the periodic table of chemical elements, it means that production quality (Pq²) is guaranteed thanks to the safety of people (Sp²) and the safety of local residents (Slr²) squared. This formula structures his commitment and guides his career. During his studies, he saw himself in charge of safety and maintenance at an industrial site, preferably one with continuous activity and a high threshold Seveso. His wish came true as soon as he finished his studies and joined Herculès-Ashland.
When he joined Saipol, his connections with the plant industry led him to defend “one of the last French flagship companies in seed processing and a player in plant-based chemistry that makes sense, since it is linked to local agriculture and meets environmental challenges,” he emphasizes. Agriculture, which he has already worked with for 12 years, starting in 2009, via fertilizers, but always on the management side of industrial sites, within GPN, Total’s fertilizer subsidiary acquired in 2013 by Borealis. His experience was enriched on the public relations side with the administration and social partners in connection with safety issues.

As such, he is a strong advocate of transparency with local stakeholders. Saipol’s role in agricultural, food and energy transitions goes hand in hand with a secure, reliable and flexible industrial tool.

His role within the Management Committee: to provide the right perspective on decisions so that the production tool can fulfil its mission under the best possible conditions.

A job behind a desk filling in Excel spreadsheets are not for her! Planning doesn’t mean filling in rows or columns. No wonder that when she joined Saipol in 2017 as head of planning and S&OP (Sales and Operation Planning), and then took over as head of Supply Chain in September 2021, she favors oral exchanges. They are far more effective than emails in briefing plant and center teams, adjusting seed and oil supply programs, production schedules and order fulfillment. “Having a plan is essential, but nothing is a given,” she says.
Being in the thick of things has been Estelle Bregetzer’s motto throughout her career. In 2003, she was the first woman to become operational director of the nitrogen fertilizer manufacturing site at Grand-Puits (77), then owned by Grande Paroisse. Her method: dialogue and perfect mastery of the tool. “We live the plant with the teams, we know all its pipes,” she says.
In 2010, she put this experience to good use by taking on a more central role as industrial director before accepting a more business-oriented mission in 2013 when GPN was bought out by Boréalis. Appointed Supply Chain Manager and attached to the sales department, she was already ensuring the proper coverage of production plans in conjunction with sales plans.

Fertilizers were not the only playground of this process engineer, specialized in robotics. The first part of her career, which began in 1996, was devoted to the plastics industry, notably at the BP plant in Lavéra and the Elf plant in Lacq.

At Saipol, she opened up to the agro-industry and agricultural raw materials. Recently, she has been working with traders. Agility is the order of the day, every day. It is the only way to make their current business compatible with her need to anticipate. Very instructive.

Her role in the management committee: Ensure that customer satisfaction objectives are met, while optimizing the total cost of operations and ensuring compliance with sustainable development.

Having joined Saipol in 2023 to head up purchasing for the entire Avril subsidiary, Vincent Garcelon embodies a new approach: “My job is to create connections, explore opportunities and build solid partnerships. This goes far beyond simple negotiation.” For him, a supplier is above all a partner who provides the right service, the right product, at the right time and at the right price.

This agricultural engineer, a graduate of EI Purpan and holder of a master’s degree from ESSEC, has acquired his expertise through a wealth of experiences. After starting his career at Nestlé from 2017 to 2018, he moved up the purchasing ladder at Lesieur, then to cross-functional purchasing at Avril, before joining Saipol.

Under his leadership, and in collaboration with Avril, Saipol’s purchasing function is evolving to become a strategic pillar of the company contributing to competitiveness and sustainability. To achieve this, his team coordinates a complex ecosystem of suppliers and experts with a philosophy based on four pillars: competitiveness, safety, innovation and sustainability, perfectly aligned with the group’s purpose, ‘Serve the Earth’.

“We don’t just buy goods or services, but expertise,” he stresses. “Ideas often come from our partners, who are real experts in their field. They help us to go further, innovate and transform our activities.”

Together with his teams, at the company’s head office and at each industrial site, they define themselves as ‘business partners’. “Every day, I deal with a wide range of issues: assessing a plant’s requirements, discussing investments with design offices, logistics with the supply chain or industrial processes,” he says. “No two days are the same, and it’s this diversity that really inspires me.”  

Rest assured, there is no typo: Émélie is spelt with two ‘é’s! Her colleagues confirm: “Once you get used to it, the i in Émilie’s sounds false to the ear! This “é” may also symbolise her journey: é for energy, é for economy, é for emissions. Since 2016, this passionate cook has been working at Saipol on an innovative economic model for low greenhouse gas emission energy from rapeseed.

Originally from Picardy, the daughter of a farmer and a graduate of AgroParisTech, Émélie Halle is the founder of the brigade that now runs OleoZE. After three years at Dreyfus, she joined Saipol as Head of Market Analysis, a newly created position to complement her trader job.

Thanks to her expertise, she then identifies the criteria for agricultural practices that enable Saipol to generate more value. We’ve added an extra layer of sustainability to the rapeseed,” she explains. Carbon storage in agricultural soils is a key issue, with approaches such as plant cover, no-till and reducing nitrogen fertilisers… As a result, we are better able to promote these traced practices to customers and we can pay  bonuses to cooperatives, retailers and farmers. This value chain supports the implementation of levers for the transition of farms“.

Decarbonising Saipol’s seed sourcing also benefits the company, which has committed to reducing its greenhouse gas emissions by 30% by 2030 as part of its CSR strategy.

To take things further, Émélie Halle has set her sights on strengthening the links between upstream farming and downstream production through the “Empreinte” programme. To achieve this goal, she can rely on her flagship tool OleoZE, of course, but also on all her teams, from seed purchasing to product sales, not forgetting the sustainability experts.

As head of the Oleo100 biofuels division since January 2025, Bastien Le Bouhellec believes he is “right in the middle of my knowledge“. An agricultural engineer with a degree from AgroParis Tech, he also has a master’s degree from the French Petroleum and Renewable Energy Institute (IFPEN).

The energy markets specialist joined Saipol in 2017 as part of the Biofuels Trade and Trading teams, taking over responsibility for the department in 2021. “Being involved in the energy business while maintaining a link with my agricultural roots is the common thread running through my career.”

Now head of the Oleo100 business, he is at the heart of the engine with Saipol’s B100 brand. 100% renewable energy from French rapeseed is strategic for Saipol and Avril. “With the support of the sourcing and sustainable supply chain department, I also have to ensure that Oleo100 remains a benchmark product and innovative on its market. This energy creates value for the entire industry, while meeting the new regulatory expectations and decarbonisation objectives of our haulier customers and their shipper customers.”

From the outset, as a keen sailor from Brittany, he reminds us of the course he and his crew take: the decarbonisation of transport through the energy mix. The strength of its rig lies in a new sail stamped Oleo100-bas GES! What makes it special? It helps to significantly reduce GHG emissions from fuel. At the same time, it promotes the work of French farmers who adopt low-carbon practices and regenerative agriculture, offering them better remuneration.

Already operational, Oleo100-low GHG energy still needs to gain recognition among transport operators.

A wind from the east pushed Isabelle Lemarié to Saipol in March 2008. She did not come from far away as she had been working at Lu in the Paris suburbs since September 2001. A graduate engineer from ENITA Bordeaux (Bordeaux Science Agro today), she arrived at a time when the Ukrainian sunflower oil crisis was affecting all industrial players in Europe. This means that she quickly adapted to the new environment to take the necessary decisions. Under her management, the teams at headquarters and in the plants ensure that the quality of Saipol’s products and services is recognised as one of the best in the industry. Her creed: “In the quality business, we are here to protect against risks, anticipate customer expectations, help find solutions, co-construct efficient production models and support the business”. And she also applies this to innovation, since she supports the implementation of projects that contribute to the company’s growth.

Her role in the management committee isto guarantee the quality of products and services and the progress of innovation projects.

An ESA engineer from Angers and holder of a “Master of Agricultural Economics” (Clemson, University SC, USA), trader at heart, Jean-Philippe Penet is enthusiastic about his mission to manage the trading and sales managers and the managers of the crushing, esterification and refining divisions. However, he could not see himself doing any other job than leading from the front on the market: “I was born to do this”, he says ironically, analysing his early years at Vandemoortele, when his factories were leased by Sofiprotéol before they were taken over in the 1990s, and then at Saipol. What drives him? Controlling the risk chain. His in-depth knowledge of the world commodities markets led him to rethink for an entire year the entire raw materials purchasing strategy and the development of the vegetable oil and protein supply. His slogan for a return to growth: “To secure the origins of seeds, both in France and in the main exporting countries in order to meet all our customers’ demands and allow projects to emerge”.

His role within the Management Committee: to be the strategic reference for the grain and energy markets

We all have our little secret peccadilloes! So, when Isabelle Weber looks back on her fifteen-year career, she doesn’t hesitate one second to confess one of hers: “I love, dry, arid prose!” Yes, the kind of text where you need to stop every four words and look back at the preceding four to try to figure out what they mean together. Like CE regulations, for example? And she likes to share that pleasure by making the drawn-out drone of legal articles “comprehensible to everyone so we can move ahead.”

Trained as a practitioner of European law, she specialises in the agri-food businesses. And that immerses her, every day, in another pleasure, one that everyone shares: eating good, all-natural food products. Since she joined Saipol in September 2022, after ten years with Danone and the start of a career in consulting, she’s kept to the course she has set for herself: “Engaging with companies who share values that are linked to the Earth and the agro-ecological transition,” she stresses. Isabelle has also not shied away from the opportunity to increase the challenges by diving into the area of biofuels regulations: “Not a year goes by when things don’t change, which makes building a long-term strategy more complex. Still it’s exciting, because my key task at Saipol is to anticipate regulatory changes in order to identify new markets for seeds for energy, for food, and for other uses. ” Because at Saipol, ideas are sprouting every day! A project that excites her? “The idea of intercropping with camelina to be used in biofuel and as a new source of vegetable protein. ” She also highlights her role as a legislative ‘evangelist’ when regulatory developments become complex to implement.

Her mission within the Management Committee: Work with and within regulations to secure the company’s choices and seize opportunities.