Who are we?
Senior founders experienced in the energy industry.
Xavier Caïtucoli
Chairman
Xavier Caïtucoli
Xavier Caïtucoli is a French entrepreneur who co-founded independent energy group Direct Energie in 2003. He ran the group as Chief Executive Officer until it was sold to leading French energy company Total in 2018 for an equity value close to €2bn, and subsequently renamed Total Direct Energie.
Mr. Caïtucoli went on to become Senior Vice-President Power & Gas Europe at Total until 2019, leading the successful integration. Under Mr. Caïtucoli’s leadership, Direct Energie went public on Paris stock exchange and combined with its main independent domestic competitor Poweo to become the leading French alternative energy supplier. At the time of its integration within Total, the group supplied more than 4 million customers in France and Belgium, generated €2bn in consolidated revenues and c.€200m in EBITDA, and operated 2 GW of installed generation capacities including notably renewables assets (solar, wind, hydraulic and biogas) and CCGTs.
Mr. Caïtucoli graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées.
Antoine Huard
CEO
Antoine Huard
Antoine Huard was Head of Development of independent solar player Générale du Solaire from 2013 to 2021, as well as CEO of the group international branch since 2018.
In 8 years, Générale du Solaire became one of the leading independent solar operator on the French market with a portfolio of projects under development exceeding 1 GW of total capacity. Its international branch GDS International is active in Italy and Africa and became an established player in the development of solar projects for C&I clients as well as rural electrification programmes.
Antoine is also president of France Territoire Solaire, a think-tank dedicated to the development of solar energy in France.
He graduated from Ecole Polytechnique and the University of Cambridge.
Industry Leading shareholders
Eiffel Investment Group
Eiffel Investment Group
A committed strategic committee
Marc-Etienne Mercadier
Marc-Etienne Mercadier
Marc-Etienne is a graduate of ESME Sudria and holds a master’s degree in the economics of sustainable development, energy and the environment from INSTN School & IFP School.
Louis David-Bellouard
Louis David-Bellouard
Jean-Paul Bize
Jean-Paul Bize
Sibylle Falguière
Sibylle Falguière
She now supports the AMS group as Investment Director. In this capacity, she is in in particular in charge of the investments led by the AMS group in the energy and luxury sectors and participates incontributes to the development and monitoring of its venture capital investment activity.
An experienced management team
Victor Lévy-Frébault
Industrial Hydrogen Leader
Victor Lévy-Frébault
Former director of development of thermal power plants at Direct Energie from 2007 to 2019, Victor is responsible for the development of several 400 MWe CCGTs, including that of Landivisiau. He was appointed Director of Business Dev. Europe after the takeover of DE by Total and is studying the development of 1,600 and 800 MWe combined cycle gas power plants with CO2 capture in the UK and Belgium, each project representing investments of around €500 to €2,000 million.
Victor graduated from UTC.
Marion Gaudry
Renewables Leader
Marion Gaudry
Marion has been working in the development of renewable energy projects since 2016. She first developed wind farm projects at Velocita Energies, the European subsidiary of the turbine manufacturer Envision, before joining Qair to contribute to the launch of their photovoltaic activity in France. She joined Verso Energy in 2022 as head of the Projects division.
Marion is a graduate of the University of Paris 1 Panthéon Sorbonne and the University of Limoges in environmental law.
Brice Robert
Financial and Administrative Leader
Brice Robert
Brice joined Direct Energie in 2009, initially as a financial controller before becoming responsible for the financial management of the group. He joined Webhelp in 2019, where he became head of financial control for the France cluster before moving into consulting. He joined Verso Energy in 2021 as administrative and financial manager.
Brice is a graduate of Panthéon-Assas University.
Arthur Auxenfants
Hydrogen Ecosystems Leaderand
Arthur Auxenfants
Arthur has 10 years of experience in the energy sector within the TotalEnergies group where he held various roles. Arthur was notably in charge of business development and strategy within the Argentine subsidiary until 2020, before being appointed head of TotalEnergies’ investments in a portfolio including a majority stake in SunPower, the leader in residential solar power in the USA, and a strategic stake in French developer TotalEren.
Arthur is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique and Imperial College London.
Thomas Drizard
Technical Leader – Renewables and Storage
Thomas Drizard
Thomas has ten years of professional experience in the renewable energy sector, including 6 years for Enedis, where he led the installation of the first battery storage systems and contributed to the experimentation of demonstration projects such as “ Nice Grid”. He also worked for Blue Solutions (Bolloré Group) on a battery storage system for RTE (“Ringo” project).
Thomas is a graduate of Ecole Centrale Paris and the Technical University of Berlin.
Pierre-François Le Bouille
Technical Leader – Hydrogen
Pierre-François Le Bouille
Pierre-François Le Bouille is a specialist in industrial gas conditioning processes. Since 2011, he has held operational positions across the entire gas engineering value chain: design, manufacturing and commissioning. In his last position, he was technical manager of Axens’ gas processing activities in the Americas.
Pierre-François is a chemical engineer with degrees from UTC, Cranfield University and IFP School.
