François Jackow

"My aim is to make Air Liquide the champion of climate solutions. This is an urgent priority for the planet, and for us all."

— François Jackow

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Overview

François Jackow
Born	(1969-06-12) June 12, 1969 Paris, France
Citizenship	France
Education	Lycée Louis-le-Grand; Lycée Henri-IV
Alma mater	École Normale Supérieure; Harvard University; Collège des Ingénieurs
Occupation(s)	Business executive; chemical industry executive
Employer	Air Liquide
Known for	Leadership of Air Liquide; ADVANCE strategic plan; climate solutions strategy
Title	Chief executive officer
Term	2022–present
Predecessor	Benoît Potier
Board member of	Air Liquide Foundation; Musée du Louvre
Children	3

🌍 François Jackow (born 12 June 1969) is a French business executive who has served as chief executive officer of industrial gases company Air Liquide since 1 June 2022, after almost three decades in management roles at the group. A graduate of École Normale Supérieure, Harvard University and the Collège des Ingénieurs, he has built his career entirely within Air Liquide, progressing from early roles in marketing, innovation and regional management to head the group’s strategy, major business lines and, ultimately, its global operations.

🧪 Scientific training and industrial pivot. Jackow’s profile combines advanced scientific training in chemistry and biology with early exposure to corporate research and industrial risk analysis, a mix that led him to describe himself as moving from “pure science” to the “business of science” when he joined Air Liquide in 1993. After brief early-career experiences at L’Oréal and Shell in the Netherlands, he entered the gases group as a young manager and took on assignments across marketing, business development and engineering in Europe and North America, experiences that shaped his later emphasis on technology-driven growth and operational discipline.

⚡ Strategic positioning. As chief executive, Jackow has maintained continuity with his predecessor Benoît Potier while steering Air Liquide towards what he terms “markets of the future”, notably clean hydrogen, healthcare, electronics and advanced manufacturing, under the ADVANCE 2022–2025 strategic plan. He has framed the company’s role in terms of enabling the energy transition and industrial decarbonisation, while continuing a long record of revenue and market-capitalisation growth that dates back to the 1980s and was reinforced during Potier’s tenure as chief executive. Under his leadership, Air Liquide has posted record earnings, raised profitability targets and outperformed the broader Paris stock market, developments that analyst commentary has linked to cost discipline, investment in high-growth segments and pricing power in industrial gases and healthcare.

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Early life and education

👶 Family and schooling. Born on 12 June 1969 in Paris, Jackow grew up in an academically oriented environment and attended two of France’s most selective secondary schools, first Lycée Louis-le-Grand and then Lycée Henri-IV, where he followed the intensive preparatory classes for the grandes écoles system. In 1992 he graduated from École Normale Supérieure with a focus on chemistry and biology and, through an exchange programme, obtained a master’s degree in chemistry from Harvard University in the same year, giving him early exposure to both French and American academic cultures.

🎓 Advanced studies and early employment. Seeking to complement his scientific training with management skills, Jackow completed an MBA at the Collège des Ingénieurs in 1993, a programme aimed at engineers transitioning into leadership roles. During his studies he undertook brief assignments outside academia, working as a research associate at cosmetics group L’Oréal in 1990 and as an industrial risk analyst for Shell in the Netherlands in 1991, experiences that exposed him to corporate research, safety and operational issues in large industrial organisations.

🧭 Decision to join Air Liquide. Although his early trajectory might have led to an academic or laboratory career, Jackow has described this period as the moment he decided to focus on “the business of science”, choosing to apply his technical expertise in an industrial setting rather than remain in research. In 1993 he joined Air Liquide as a young manager, attracted by the company’s global footprint and the opportunity to work on applied projects in gases, energy and healthcare, and he has remained with the group ever since.

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Career

🏢 Early roles within Air Liquide. In his first decade at Air Liquide, Jackow held positions in marketing, sales, business development and engineering across France, the United States and the Netherlands, as part of the group’s practice of rotating high-potential managers through different regions and functions. Senior leadership, including chief executive Benoît Potier, identified him early as a promising talent; for two years in the late 1990s he worked directly with Potier at headquarters, an assignment that gave him close exposure to corporate strategy and decision-making at the top of the company.

🔬 Innovation and early leadership posts. In 2002, at the age of thirty-three, Jackow became vice-president of innovation, overseeing Air Liquide’s research and development and advanced technologies portfolio at group level. In this role he supervised programmes in fields such as hydrogen, including early “Blue Hydrogen” initiatives aimed at developing low-carbon hydrogen production solutions well before hydrogen became a central theme in climate policy debates.

🗾 Responsibility for Japan and Large Industries. In 2007 Jackow was appointed chief executive of Air Liquide Japan, moving to Tokyo to lead operations in a mature but technologically advanced market where the group serves sectors such as electronics and healthcare. During his four-year tenure in Japan he expanded activities with semiconductor manufacturers and hospitals and positioned the subsidiary as a partner in environmental solutions before returning to Paris in 2011 as group vice-president in charge of the worldwide Large Industries business line, supplying oxygen, nitrogen and hydrogen to heavy industrial customers including steelmakers, chemical producers and refineries.

📊 Strategy, Airgas acquisition and Executive Committee role. In 2014 Jackow joined Air Liquide’s executive committee as group vice-president for strategy, taking responsibility for defining the company’s mid-term direction and coordinating its portfolio of activities. He led the development of the NEOS 2016–2020 strategic plan, which set objectives for efficiency and growth, and contributed to the analysis and integration planning for the US$12.5 billion acquisition of United States industrial gases distributor Airgas in 2016, a transaction that significantly strengthened Air Liquide’s footprint in North America at a time when consolidation in the sector was producing larger competitors such as the merged Linde–Praxair group.

🌍 Executive vice-president and crisis management. From 2016 onwards, Jackow served as executive vice-president with an expanding remit that eventually covered Air Liquide’s operations in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and India, as well as its global healthcare business and innovation and digital activities. During the COVID-19 pandemic he played a visible operational role, coordinating participation in a French industrial consortium that produced thousands of ventilators in a compressed timeframe and ramping up medical oxygen supply to hospitals, actions that were highlighted by company communications as examples of Air Liquide’s response to the health emergency.

🏛️ Appointment as chief executive. In December 2021 Air Liquide announced that Jackow would succeed Benoît Potier as chief executive officer with effect from 1 June 2022, while Potier would become non-executive chairman, continuing a tradition of long tenures and carefully managed successions at the company. The appointment made Jackow only the sixth chief executive in Air Liquide’s then 120-year history and was widely interpreted by analysts and the business press as signalling strategic continuity combined with renewed emphasis on climate and digital priorities.

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Strategy and performance at Air Liquide

🔋 ADVANCE plan and markets of the future. As chief executive, Jackow has overseen the implementation of ADVANCE, Air Liquide’s strategic plan for 2022–2025, which aims to balance financial performance with environmental and societal commitments. The plan emphasises growth in four priority areas—decarbonised hydrogen and other low-carbon solutions, healthcare, electronics and high-tech manufacturing—while maintaining the group’s traditional industrial gases activities and targeting improved margins and returns on capital.

🌬️ Energy transition and hydrogen projects. In public statements, including interviews during the 2022–2023 energy crisis, Jackow has argued that difficulties in European energy markets act as an accelerator for innovation and efficiency and reinforce the case for long-term investments in hydrogen, carbon capture and renewable energy-linked gases. Under his leadership, Air Liquide has expanded its portfolio of hydrogen projects, and by 2023 the company had been selected as an industrial partner in most of the large clean-hydrogen hubs supported by the United States government, positioning it as a significant player in North America’s emerging hydrogen infrastructure.

📡 Digitalisation and operational efficiency. Internally, Jackow has promoted digital transformation, encouraging wider use of data analytics, artificial intelligence and remote monitoring to optimise production plants, logistics networks and customer interfaces. He has been described in corporate materials and profiles as a collaborative manager who convenes cross-functional task forces to address major initiatives and chairs regular innovation reviews to accelerate the deployment of new technologies such as carbon capture systems and telemonitoring platforms for home healthcare patients.

💹 Financial outcomes and shareholder returns. Financial results under Jackow have so far combined revenue growth with rising profitability, despite inflationary pressures and energy-price volatility. In 2023 Air Liquide reported a double-digit increase in recurring operating income on a comparable basis and announced an acceleration of its 2025 margin-improvement target, which was doubled to 320 basis points above 2021 levels, while its share price reached record highs and the company continued a long history of dividend growth and outperformance of the CAC 40 index.

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Compensation and wealth

💶 Structure of remuneration. As chief executive of a large-capitalisation industrial group, Jackow receives a remuneration package comprising fixed salary, annual variable bonuses and long-term incentive awards that are partly contingent on financial and environmental, social and governance metrics. For the 2024 financial year his total compensation was estimated at about €4.7 million, of which approximately one quarter was fixed salary around €1.2 million and the remainder variable incentives in cash and shares, a level that analyses have described as close to the median for chief executives of comparable French chemicals companies.

🏛️ Shareholding and alignment with investors. In addition to his annual compensation, Jackow holds a personal stake in Air Liquide through shares accumulated over his career, with investor analyses indicating a holding of around 0.01 per cent of the company, or roughly 60,000 shares, representing several tens of millions of euros at recent market prices. Commentators have noted that, unlike founders or large block shareholders, most of his personal wealth appears to be tied to the performance of the company he leads, reinforcing a stewardship-oriented approach closely aligned with long-term shareholders.

🎭 External roles and philanthropy. Outside his executive responsibilities, Jackow holds positions linked to Air Liquide’s philanthropic and cultural partnerships, serving on the board of the Air Liquide Foundation, which supports environmental, health and scientific projects, and representing the company on the board of the Musée du Louvre in Paris. These roles reflect both corporate sponsorship and his personal interest in the arts and research, and they are complemented by private charitable activities reported in the business press, notably in areas related to children’s health and environmental conservation.

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Personal life and character

🏡 Family and privacy. Despite his public position, Jackow is frequently characterised in French business media as a discreet figure who avoids personal publicity; he is married, has three children and is described as strongly protective of his family’s privacy. Profiles have highlighted his preference for spending free time with his family and travelling to less frequented destinations, where he seeks to expose his children to different cultures in line with his own international academic and professional experience.

⛷️ Hobbies and cultural interests. Outside work, Jackow is known as an enthusiastic skier and golfer, hobbies that allow him to spend time outdoors and engage in informal competition, and he is also a keen amateur pianist who uses music as a way to unwind. According to accounts in the French press, he attends classical music performances in Paris when his schedule permits and occasionally plays piano at the office after hours, a habit colleagues have cited as evidence of a balanced personality that combines analytical work with artistic interests.

🤝 Leadership style and values. Colleagues and journalists have portrayed Jackow’s management style as analytical but empathetic, noting that he brings a scientist’s attention to data and detail while emphasising the importance of the “human element” in corporate decisions. He is frequently associated with Air Liquide’s core values of entrepreneurial spirit, operational excellence, innovation and responsibility, and internal and external profiles alike describe him as a consensus-builder who listens carefully, encourages contributions from a wide range of staff and supports diversity and inclusion initiatives within the company.

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Controversies and challenges

🕊️ Reputation and absence of major scandals. Compared with some contemporaries, Jackow has attracted relatively little controversy, and media coverage has often emphasised the absence of personal scandals or legal disputes in his career, which has been spent almost entirely within a single company. A reputation survey of leaders of major French listed companies in the SBF 120 index, for example, gave him high marks for image and digital reputation and noted that no significant public incident had tarnished his profile as of the mid-2020s.

⚡ Energy crisis and strategic tests. One of the earliest tests of Jackow’s tenure as chief executive came with the spike in European energy prices following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which affected both Air Liquide’s own operations and those of its industrial customers. In interviews and investor communications he presented the crisis as an opportunity to accelerate efficiency measures and the deployment of low-carbon technologies, arguing that high energy costs strengthened the rationale for investments in hydrogen and other climate-solution businesses, while the company simultaneously managed to maintain supply to key clients and preserve profitability.

🏭 Competition and growth expectations. Strategically, Jackow faces the challenge of sustaining Air Liquide’s growth momentum in a sector reshaped by consolidation and the rise of larger competitors, notably the merged Linde–Praxair group, which overtook Air Liquide as the world’s largest industrial gases producer. Analysts and shareholders look to him to match or exceed the performance of his long-serving predecessor, and so far the company’s revenue, earnings and total shareholder return have remained strong, with recent years showing share-price gains ahead of the CAC 40 benchmark and continued investment in high-growth segments rather than in transformational mergers and acquisitions.

🌍 Climate commitments and investor scrutiny. In the environmental domain, Jackow has positioned Air Liquide as a provider of solutions for industrial decarbonisation and has endorsed targets including carbon neutrality by 2050, with interim milestones for 2025 and 2035 and the linkage of executive bonuses to emissions-reduction indicators. At the same time, investors and climate-advocacy coalitions such as Climate Action 100+ have kept the company under scrutiny, welcoming progress on disclosure and targets but calling for faster reductions in direct and indirect emissions and closer alignment with net-zero pathways, particularly given Air Liquide’s ongoing role in supplying gases to carbon-intensive sectors.

📋 Governance dynamics and succession. Governance observers have noted that Jackow’s appointment formed part of a carefully staged succession in which Benoît Potier moved to the role of non-executive chairman while remaining involved in certain missions, an arrangement that combines continuity with the need for the new chief executive to establish his own authority. So far shareholder meetings have shown strong support for the management team and the company’s strategy, with no major revolts over leadership or remuneration policies, although advisory votes and investor engagement on climate and governance issues indicate that expectations of accountability remain high.

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Legacy and assessment

🧭 Emerging legacy. Commentators situate Jackow in a line of Air Liquide leaders who have combined long tenures with incremental transformations of the group, describing his emerging legacy as that of a chief executive tasked with steering a century-old industrial company into an era defined by decarbonisation, digitalisation and evolving expectations of corporate responsibility. His tenure is still in its early stages, but accounts in the business press emphasise the continuity he provides after Potier’s two decades in charge, the acceleration of investment in hydrogen and other “future markets”, and a leadership style perceived as steady, international in outlook and rooted in both scientific training and managerial experience gained entirely within one organisation.

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