Top 100 Executives 2021 – Henri Poupart-Lafarge (CEO) Alstom

Academic and corporate success runs in the family for Henri Poupart-Lafarge. His father and grandfather are graduates of prestigious French universities and the Alstom boss himself attended MIT. Henri’s father, Oliver, was second-in-command at Bouygues, a company that maintains a majority stake in Alstom, while his brother, Arnaud is the former CEO of Nexans.

Poupart-Lafarge knows the transport sector from back to front. The 52-year-old’s experience in the private sector is complemented by stints at the World Bank in Washington and with the French ministry of finance.     

Do the locomotion
Poupart-Lafarge joined Alstom in 1998, and has occupied both financial and managerial positions over the past two decades. In 2019, his range of experience saw the Nancy native’s name start to be tossed around as a possible successor to the disgraced former head of Renault, Carlos Ghosn. Instead, and to no great surprise, he renewed his contract with his existing company for another four years. In 2020, Alstom’s valuation rose to such an extent that the Paris-headquartered firm regained a position on the prestigious CAC 40 Index, supplanting hospitality giant Accor in the process.

The short-term growth of the French multinational appears to be assured with the €5.3 billion acquisition of Canada’s Bombardier in January. Thanks to this purchase, Alstom has become the number one manufacturer of rolling stock in Europe, and the second biggest in the world after China’s CRRC. The beefed-up Alstom has orders in the pipeline worth €75 billion.

Fresh from closing the Bombardier deal, in July Poupart-Lafarge unveiled Alstom’s latest multi-year strategic plan, it contained a roadmap that would lead to “a new chapter in the history of Alstom,” in response to “the historic acceleration of green and sustainable mobility needs across the world. From now to 2025, we believe Alstom will significantly outperform the market,” Poupart-Lafarge commented. Alstom will also set new standards for green and intelligent mobility in terms of sustainability, innovation and profitability, the plan stated.

Hydrogen-power
To make progress in these areas, the company with 9,500 patents to its name is set to invest €500-600 million in 2024/2025, which roughly equates to 3% of turnover. All this points to a company that is serious about keeping up with the stiff competition coming out of Asia. Alstom now looks set to be in a position to boost annual turnover by 5% or more, and grow its share of the global rolling-stock market by a similar amount.

Hydrogen-powered trains will play a big part in the future of the company. First seen in Germany in 2018, the first Alstom Coradia iLint trains are set to enter service in France in 2022, following SNCF’s decision to buy €190 million worth of these models.

In addition, 41 trainsets have been ordered by two German states and successful trials have taken place in Austria, the Netherlands, Sweden and France. In Italy, the operator FNM confirmed an order for 14 hydrogen-powered trains at the end of 2020. 

These sales shows show that, from a strategic point of view, Poupart-Lafarge knows exactly the right time to change tracks.