Potier

Mr. Potier doesn't have time to set foot in the group's laboratories for his job now is business-focused.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

Tomorrow, Mr. Potier will join several car makers, including PSA Peugeot-Citroën, Opel, Honda, Hyundai, Daimler and Toyota, in giving the press a taste of these vehicles.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

Reuters Benoît Potier, chairman and chief executive of Air Liquide, is an engineer who says he is 'a bit of a scientist' but is so busy dealing with finances that he no longer has time to visit the laboratory.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

"We planted our little seeds, we took positions that will allow us to grow; that's the arable land strategy," Mr. Potier says, noting that despite the Arab Spring in some of its new Middle Eastern markets, the company still believes it runs few risks with its strategy.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

For Air Liquide, the prospects are enticing: if just one 1% of the global car fleet were hydrogen-powered, that would represent €15 billion in sales of hydrogen, Mr. Potier says.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

Benoît Potier, chairman and chief executive of Air Liquide, scrutinizes the view from his office barely a mile from the Eiffel Tower with a wide smile, an eye on his company's chief input material: air.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

Mr. Potier trained as an engineer at the French elite engineering school École Centrale des Arts et Manufactures, before joining Air Liquide in 1981.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

In addition to geographical expansion, Mr. Potier also believes the future for a company whose business is based, quite literally, on thin air lies in developing new uses for it.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

"The most important thing is to always have ideas for the next 20 years and then to decide how to convert them into tomorrow's innovations," Mr. Potier says, looking sternly over his thin-rimmed glasses.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011

Although the company isn't ruling out small and medium-sized acquisitions, "transformational M&A activity is difficult to imagine in the industrial-gas business due to anti-trust rules, but this doesn't mean that we are limited; we continue to develop our markets," Mr. Potier says.

Weighty Business of Thin Air Géraldine Amiel 2011