GTT Board Chair: Catherine Ronge Succeeds Philippe Berterottière

The last step in a long handover

On October 23, 2026, GTT's board named Catherine Ronge as its next chair. Ronge is an independent director and currently chairs the board's Nominations and Compensation Committee. She replaces Philippe Berterottière, who is resigning from the board effective November 16, 2026.11 Calling this a "founder steps down" story would be slightly wrong. GTT says its membrane containment technology has been in development for more than 60 years, so Berterottière did not found the company.2 He is, however, the executive most closely tied to its modern identity. In his own statement he describes seventeen years at the helm, and market data lists him as chairman since late 2008.1518 His departure ends the era in which one person stood for the French LNG containment specialist.

The board says the appointment follows a succession plan it had already put in place. It presents the choice as a sign that the strategy will continue, not that it will change.11 The announcement came on the same day as GTT's third-quarter activity update. Running the two together lets the company pair a leadership change with a message of commercial strength.33

Why Berterottière says now

Berterottière gives a simple reason for leaving. He spent 2026 supporting François Michel after Michel took over as chief executive at the start of the year, and he now considers that handover complete.15 The timing therefore depends on Michel. As long as a fairly new CEO might need an experienced chair beside him, Berterottière stayed. Once that support was no longer needed, he resigned.

That explanation fits the reporting from when Michel was hired. GTT announced in December 2025 that Michel would become CEO on January 5, 2026, which restored a structure with separate chair and CEO roles. The board's decision was unanimous.23 Coverage at the time noted that Michel, formerly chief executive of John Cockerill and before that an executive at Saint-Gobain, had less experience in the marine sector. He would need to build relationships with shipyards and buyers, and analysts expected Berterottière's continued presence as chair to help.21 Ten months later, that support role has ended.

A succession process that went wrong once

The word "orderly" in GTT's announcements needs some context. The company first tried to separate the chair and CEO roles after a board decision in February 2022.2 In April 2024 it named Jean-Baptiste Choimet, head of the hydrogen subsidiary Elogen, as chief executive from June 2024, with Berterottière staying on as chair.14 Ronge's committee ran that search, and she praised Choimet's experience in LNG and hydrogen at the time.4

It did not last. Choimet resigned in February 2025, about eight months into the job, and GTT gave no reasons.25 Reuters reported that the shares fell more than 5% that day. The resignation came as GTT was reviewing Elogen, which had won no significant orders in 2024 and posted a core loss of €33 million.28 The restructuring plan included up to 110 job cuts and a halt to construction of the Vendôme gigafactory.28 Berterottière went back to running the company as interim CEO while the board started a new search.25

That history matters for judging this week's news. In both CEO searches, Ronge was the director in charge of the process.423 She now becomes chair, the person overseeing the executive her committee picked. One view is that this gives continuity: she knows Michel and the board's reasoning well. Another view is that the same person who chose the CEO will now be the main check on how he performs. GTT's board is heavily independent, which reduces that concern. Still, investors may reasonably watch whether the chair keeps enough distance from her own hiring choice.

Who Ronge is

Ronge has an unusually technical background for the chair of a listed company. She studied at the École Normale Supérieure Paris-Saclay and holds a PhD in quantum physics. She started as a research engineer at the CEA in 1984 and spent 1988 to 1999 at Air Liquide, working in marketing, sales, strategy and M&A, and R&D.15 Air Liquide is an industrial gases group, which gives her a real link to the cryogenic engineering at the center of GTT's business. She later founded and chaired Weave Air, a consultancy on strategy, innovation and sustainable development, from 2006 to 2020.11 She has been a Colas director since 2014 and sits as a non-voting board member at Paprec.11

The two versions of the announcement disagree on one detail. The English release says she has been chair and CEO of the family-owned Le Garrec & Cie group "since June 2026."11 The French release says she held that role until June 2026.17 The French wording is more likely to be correct, because it would mean she has given up an executive job and has more time for the GTT chair. Readers should still treat that point as unconfirmed.

She joined GTT's board as an independent director in 2021, has chaired the nominations committee since 2023, and also sits on the Strategy and CSR Committee.11

Board changes and pay

The appointment also reshuffles the committees. Sandra Lagumina takes over the Nominations and Compensation Committee and leaves the Audit and Risks Committee. Luc Gillet joins the nominations committee in place of Pierre Guiollot.11 Pascal Macioce remains chair of audit, and Antoine Rostand remains chair of strategy and CSR.11 After Berterottière leaves, the board will have eight members. Seven are independent (88%), and half are women. A search for one more independent director is under way.1517

In a separate filing, GTT set Ronge's fixed annual pay as chair at €350,000. She will receive no annual variable pay, no long-term incentives, and no termination or non-compete payments.14 The board says the package follows the chair pay policy shareholders approved on June 16, 2026, for Berterottière.14 A non-executive chair paid only a fixed fee follows standard AFEP-MEDEF practice. It also shows that the executive authority now sits with Michel and not with the board.

Strong orders, weaker revenue

The same-day trading update gives Ronge a mixed starting point. Revenue for the first nine months of 2026 was €570.1 million, down 4.9% from a record year earlier. GTT puts the drop down to fewer LNG carriers under construction after a weak period for orders in 2025.33 Orders, by contrast, were strong. GTT booked 80 orders, 71 of them for new LNG carriers, which the company calls its second-best commercial performance. Its core order book reached 299 units worth about €1.8 billion.33 One published summary of the earnings call gave a much lower order book figure, while a French-language version gave €1.85 billion.3132 The company's own figure of roughly €1.8 billion is the one to rely on.

GTT Marine grew 138% to €47.4 million, mostly because of the Danelec acquisition, and now makes up 8% of group revenue. Elogen's revenue fell to €0.7 million as it shifts to research and development.3334 GTT kept its 2026 targets of €740–780 million in revenue and €490–530 million in EBITDA. Management said it was not narrowing the range because of geopolitical uncertainty, including conflict in the Middle East that affects shipping through the Strait of Hormuz.3135 Investing.com reported that the shares rose 3.3% after the call.31

The takeaway

This transition is easy to underrate because it was planned. The CEO was hired a year ago, the incoming chair has spent five years on the board, and the outgoing chair says the handover is finished. The background is less tidy: a CEO who left after eight months, a hydrogen bet that had to be scaled back, and a long-serving leader who returned to run the company before finally leaving. On the evidence available, GTT has now fully separated the chair and CEO roles, and it has a chair whose industrial-gas background fits the core business. The test for the Ronge–Michel pairing is the one the 2024 arrangement failed: keeping a new chief executive in place long enough to deliver the strategy. With a record order book providing visibility out to 2029 and beyond, Michel's position looks more secure than Choimet's ever did.34