Thales announced on 28 September 2023 that it has appointed Loïc Rocard, chairman and CEO of TechnicAtome, as an ‘External Director’ of the Thales Board of Directors, succeeding to Philippe Knoche.
Rocard has also been appointed chairman of the company’s Governance and Compensation Committee. His term of office runs until the close of the Annual General Meeting called to approve the financial statements for fiscal year 2023.
A former student at the Polytechnique engineering school, Rocard is also a graduate of the ENAC engineering school and holds a degree in History from Paris IV Sorbonne and a Master of Science from the University of California at Berkeley. He began his career in 1997 at Aéroports de Paris, where he worked for 10 years. He was first an advisor to the Director of Flight Operations, then Operations Director for the Roissy Charles de Gaulle 2 terminals, before heading up the airport’s two automatic metro projects.
Rocard subsequently joined Vinci Group to manage rail concession projects, in particular the tender for Sud Europe Atlantique (the Tours-Bordeaux high-speed line). In 2010 he became operations director of Cofiroute before being appointed CEO there in 2012.
From May 2014 to May 2017 Rocard was an advisor to the Head of the Transport, Environment, Energy, Housing and Urban Planning Department in the French Prime Minister’s Office.
