French President François Hollande has ratified the proposal of the DCNS Board of Directors to appoint Hervé Guillou as Chairman of the Group’s Board of Directors and to delegate to him the duties of Chairman and Chief Executive Officer.

Hervé Guillou said: “I am honoured and proud to return to DCNS, which my predecessors and their teams have successfully transformed into an industrial company with ambitious new strategic objectives. Today DCNS is a world leader in naval defence and growing its business in a number of new markets. I know DCNS because I started my career here and have worked with the naval sector throughout my professional life. I share the organisation’s core values and admire its technical know-how and its capacity to manage complex industrial programmes. I have full confidence in the talent of its people and their ability to successfully meet the operational and strategic challenges of the coming years and pursue the company’s growth and development goals profitably both in France and internationally.”

Hervé Guillou began his career in 1978 at the Direction des Constructions Navales (DCN), first in Cherbourg and later at the Nantes-Indret establishment. In 1989 he joined the French defence procurement agency (DGA) in Paris as Chief of Staff. In 1993, Hervé Guillou was appointed Programme Manager for the Horizon international tripartite anti-air warfare frigate programme (United Kingdom, Italy, France). In 1996, he became Managing Director of Technicatome, the nuclear engineering subsidiary of Areva. He joined EADS in 2003 as Chief Executive Officer of EADS Space Transportation, the Franco-German business unit in charge of the Ariane launcher programme and the M51 ballistic missile programme. In 2005, Hervé Guillou became CEO of the Munich-based Defence & Communication Systems business unit of EADS/Cassidian (later renamed Cassidian Systems). In 2011 he founded Cassidian Cybersecurity and became Chief Executive Officer. From September 2012 until January 2014, Hervé Guillou was Senior Advisor Defence & Security at EADS. He was appointed Chairman & Chief Executive Officer of DCNS on July 23, 2014.

Hervé Guillou is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique, ENSTA ParisTech (École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées), INSTN (Institut National des Sciences et Techniques Nucléaires) and INSEAD, and is certified by the Institut Français d’Administration at Sciences-Po.