Air Liquide simplifies its organization to meet growing market demand and boost performance

Capitalizing on its ADVANCE strategic plan for 2025, on an enhanced performance ambition and on a record-high number of investment opportunities, Air Liquide has launched a new Group transformation program to foster agility and improve efficiency. To support this program, the Group is announcing several organizational and governance changes, to be effective September 1, 2024.

François Jackow, Chief Executive Officer of the Air Liquide Group, said :

Air Liquide's robust business model and the successful implementation of its ADVANCE strategic plan have well-positioned the company to prepare for the future. We have never had so many projects ahead! Seizing these emerging growth opportunities, which contribute to tackling major global challenges such as industrial decarbonization or supporting the growth of the electronics sector, will require substantial investments. It will also require that we simplify our own internal organization to further improve agility, accelerate decision making, and leverage the company’s scale to deliver competitive advantage. I trust our employees and customers alike will appreciate this renewed commitment to be more performant, more efficient, and more relevant than ever -unlocking our full potential to be fit for the future.

A simplified organization for more performance and agility

As part of its ADVANCE strategic plan and associated performance ambition, this multi-year transformation initiative is designed to position Air Liquide for sustained growth and long-term success, by boosting performance sustainably while improving the way the Group delivers added value to its stakeholders.

Simplifying the organizational matrix is one important component of performance delivery. To that end,  Air Liquide will implement multiple changes, such as reducing layers within the organization and adopting a simplified structure composed of Operations and Functions interacting directly.

In addition, a single worldwide Group Industrial Direction will be created to better serve our multiple customers by leveraging our know-how and optimize the Group’s industrial processes, ensuring highest standards of safety, quality, reliability, and efficiency for our customers.

Within the Executive Committee, an adjusted Governance reflecting these organizational changes, as of September 1^st:

• Emilie Mouren-Renouard, Group Vice President, will directly supervise all clusters located in Europe and Africa Middle East India.
• Armelle Levieux, Group Vice President Innovation and Technology, will supervise Engineering and Construction in addition to her current responsibilities.
• Pascal Vinet, Executive Group Vice President, will supervise the newly created Group Industrial Direction, in addition to supervising the Group Safety and the Industrial Merchant Business Line.
• Michael J. Graff, Executive Group Vice President, retired at the end of June, 2024.

The respective scopes of the other members of the Executive Committee remain unchanged.

François Jackow commented:

I would like to take this opportunity to thank Mike Graff for his long standing contribution to the development of Air Liquide, in particular in the Americas.

 Commenting on the new transformation program, he added :

I have every confidence that this simplified organization will enable us to better serve our customers and patients while boosting further the level of engagement of our teams. Together with all of them, we will continue to position the Group for the future, by seizing growth opportunities while effectively addressing the evolving needs and expectations of our customers and employees.