Christophe de Margerie was a French businessman. He served as the chairman and chief executive officer of French oil corporation Total S.A..
Early life
Christophe de Margerie was born in Mareuil-sur-Lay-Dissais, France, on 6 August 1951. His parents were Pierre-Alain Rodocanachi and Colette Taittinger. His mother later married Pierre-Alain Jacquin de Margerie, who adopted him. Margerie was the grandson of Pierre Taittinger, founder of Jeunesses Patriotes, and the half-brother of Victoire de Margerie, the current CEO of Rondol.
Career
Margerie joined the Total Group, Total S.A., after graduating from ESCP Europe in Paris in 1974. He started working for Total in the Finance Department and Exploration & Production division. He became president of Total Middle East in 1995 before joining the group's executive committee as president of the Exploration & Production division in May 1999. In January 2002 he became president of the Exploration & Production division of Total. He was appointed a member of the board of directors on 12 May 2006 and became CEO of on 14 February 2007. From 21 May 2010, he served as chairman of the company. De Margerie had strong ties with many countries and in particular with Russia. The company's interests in the region was capitalizing and skirting the International sanctions during the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in Ukraine put into place by United States over the Ukrainian crises. De Margerie, the charismatic person aka "Big Mustache", was an astute strategist who recognized that the sanctions had placed the Total Group at a distinct advantage to the restrained international competitors. He down played the situation by saying that “it was not the first time there was a crisis between Europe and Russia”. Russia's President Vladimir Putin paid tribute to de Margerie as a “true friend of our country” via telegram to the French President, Mr Hollande; further stating, de Margerie had “pioneered many of the major joint projects and laid the foundation for many years of fruitful co-operation between France and Russia in the energy sector”. On 23 July 2011, he and 15 other heads of French companies asked the French government to pay more taxes.
Death
De Margerie died in an aircraft crash in Moscow on 20 October 2014, along with the three-member crew. The aircraft, the Dassault Falcon 50, hit a snowplow on take-off from the Vnukovo International Airport. De Margerie was returning to Paris after a meeting at the dacha of Russian Prime MinisterDmitry Medvedev, near Moscow, subsequent to a business leaders' meeting in Gorky. The two men had been discussing investments in Russia amid the 2014 pro-Russian unrest in the East of Ukraine and the resulting Western sanctions imposed on Russia as a result of the standoff. French authorities opened a manslaughter investigation.
