– Our governance –

At the Lasalle-Beauvais engineering school, his friends thought he was an alien because he was so interested in “soil science” , which is so off-putting for “normal” students. He even remembers spending hours analysing the structure of soil profiles. The soil and the plants that grow on it: a real passion. But research is not for him, as it is “too slow”, he admits. His speed of action and decision making are put to good use in agro-industrial projects in the sugar and grain sectors in Russia. Then, in 1995, he joined Cargill’s seed division, then the leader in rapeseed and sunflower… a visionary move! He continued in 1997 as a trader in sugar. A return to the ground in 2003, when he headed up Cargill Crop Nutrition in Europe and then the presidency of Mosaic France, a subsidiary of the world’s #1 fertiliser company. He remained in the fertilisation sector until 2017 after which he was recruited in 2007 by Total within GPN. He then became General Manager of Borealis France (production) and President of Borealis LAT France (distribution).

Christophe Beaunoir then joined Saipol to lead the company’s recovery based on four challenges that are driving 21st century agriculture, that is:

• providing quality food;
• preserving resources: water, air and biodiversity;
• combating global warming by storing carbon in the soil and reducing fossil fuel consumption;
• creating value for our partners: restoring farmers’ income, proposing solutions for economically efficient energy, agricultural and food transitions.

By relying on agronomy and digital technology, the objective is to create value for farmers around all the uses of seed: food for humans and animals, plant ingredients and proteins, and renewable energy.

His role in the management committee: :  To design and implement the company’s strategy and restore its profitability.

Pascal Boquet remembers very clearly the day when he joined the Avril Group, in April 2015. At the time, he was the head of his own transition management consultancy firm, which focused on large chemical and oil groups. He was attracted by the challenge: how to reposition a company operating in a mass market into a supplier of speciality products open to diversification? Succeeding in facing up to such a challenge cannot be possible without the women and men who make up the company. He relied on his expertise, built up since the 1990s within the Manpower group, and then with major stakeholders of the chemical and pharmaceutical industries. His creed? Relying on social dialogue to set the agenda, to give meaning to everyone’s work in order to empower teams.

His role within the Management Committee is to ensure that the company has the human and organisational resources to achieve its objectives and to ensure that everyone can flourish.

What is a little girl to do for a living, a little girl who builds trucks with her Lego Technic, who is passionate about racing in the Australian desert with solar-powered machines starting from primary school, and later on, after completing her engineering studies, takes part in the Shell ecoMarathon speed contest for the most kilometres driven on one litre of petrol? Obviously a job related to mobility and renewable energy! After studying at the Ecole Centrale Marseille, and following a visit to Canada, Claire Duhamel began her career with Shell in 1998. She worked in all sectors: lubricant for boat engines, fuel for planes, bitumen for roads… Twenty years later, she said stop. The question of which direction to take arose in order to add the environmental dimension to her passion. She joined Saipol in March 2020 after completing her general management training programme at Essec. Since then, she has been paving the way to take the Oleo100 chain as far as possible.

Her role within the Management Committee is to  : développer Oleo100 et develop Oleo100 and to contribute her vision of the fuel market in the context of the energy mix. 

Barbara speaks Ebitda fluently! This is normal since, after business school, she spent her entire career in finance with large industrial groups and international establishments, and even worked in Asia for five years. And then there was the time spent in an agro-industrial group, which led to an attachment to the agricultural sector: “Feeding the World, this commitment moves me, gives more meaning to our jobs”, she said. When she joined Saipol in April 2018 to help in the recovery of the company, the agricultural roots as well as the Avril Group’s values of Respect, Audacity and Performance quickly appealed to her. “And they have not been denied”, she adds. “We are responsible for turning the company around by finding new growth drivers”. And don’t tell her that numbers are dehumanised and boring! “To return to growth, we must work in a spirit of goodwill, with each other”. So she has a lot of fun sharing her financial expertise with employees to give them the right indicators of success, like the famous Ebitda. “We work seriously without taking ourselves seriously”, she says. “Along with the requirements, there is a lot of good humour! ”

Her role within the Management Committee: ontribuer au retouto contribute to the return to profitability of the company through controlled risk management.  

When will we see a rocket powered by rapeseed from the Earth to the Moon? Kristell Guizouarn does not hesitate to say, when she talks about her mission to prospect for new markets for bio-based new energies, and made in France, that she does not set herself intellectual limits! The decarbonisation of the transport sector is a real launch pad. An agronomist by education and an engineer in petroleum products and engines, she very quickly turned her attention to sustainable development and energy-related issues when she joined the Avril Group in September 2005. And she admits to being rather proud that no one has run out of vehicles, since until 2011 her job was to increase the incorporation of biodiesel into diesel. Kristell’s career is also marked by numerous other commitments. President of Estérifrance since 2013, of the European biodiesel board since 2018, she accepted the mandate of president of the Groupement des transformateurs d’oléagineux métropolitains in 2020.

She worked hard to bring B100 to France, which resulted in the launch of Oleo100 two years later in 2018. Since 2020, she has been making sure that the legislative and regulatory frameworks are favourable to the development of Saipol’s and the Avril Group’s activities at the French and European levels. Her aim is to move the boundaries in an energy transition perspective for all sectors.

Her role within the Management Committee:  sharing her knowledge of the legislative ecosystem related to energy and helping the company to look ahead to the markets of the future.

We bet that Thierry Handtschoewercker enjoys his salad with vinaigrette made with ISIO 4 oil and his eggs mimosa with Lesieur mayonnaise. Does the focus on his professional career regularly invite itself to his table? From 1984 to 2011, he worked in all the Lesieur factories, first to participate in the construction of a margarine factory and then as quality manager in the condiment sector with the construction project of General condimentaire, of which he became manager in 1994. After being director of the Aix-en-Provence, Bacalan-Bordeaux and Coudekerque-Branche sites, he joined Saipol as head of the Mériot plant in 2011. He has managed industrial operations since 2014 and the supply chain since 2018. “I come from a customer-focused company”, he says, “so when in 2018 we had to accelerate the transformation of Saipol’s plant operations, the mission was very quickly understood”. He has set up an agile system that can maintain industrial production rates for large volumes and also process seeds for the production of speciality products. His mission also includes industrial and employee safety.

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

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

While all her classmates in the Master II Market Finance programme of the University of Bordeaux-Montesquieu went to internships in prestigious Parisian banks, in 2010, Camille Ringeade packed her bags and headed for Bourges, with the prospect of a job as a financial broker in an agricultural commodity brokerage firm. Two years later, in June 2012, she joined Feed Alliance within the Avril Group, then known as Sofiprotéol, to work in the feed sector as a buyer on the financial markets. “It was a formative period at a professional level”, she admits. “I learned a lot from the traders.” In 2015, she took up the position of Functional Leader for Trading & Risk with the group on the process and information systems transformation project, Symphony. An ambitious project for which she was one of the leaders for three years, until it was put on hold in 2018, when she joined Saipol to assist the Management Committee in the implementation of its 2023 strategic plan.

Her role within the Management Committee: to ensure, with each of the directors, that Saipol’s organisations, skills, processes and information systems are in line with the ambitions of the company’s strategic plan.