From 1996, Jean-François has been the Managing Director, then Chairman/CEO and main shareholder of Maurel & Prom oil company and currently serves as Co-Chair and Head of Oil & Gas Risk Committee of Zinhoe Oil & Gas Group. Jean-François graduated from the Paris IAE in Economics and occupied many senior positions across many international companies. Jean-François is a former director of Treasury and Foreign Exchange of the Lyonnaise de Dépôts company, Treasurer of THOMSON CSF, Chief Executive Officer of Altus Finance, Vice-Chairman of the supervisory board of Altus Finance, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of Electricité et Eaux de Madagascar (EEM).

Jean-François is a risk taker, which is displayed in his behaviour of taking decisions that are contrary/opposite to the industry norms and the financial establishment he frequents. Jean-François is known for always operating against the cycle. However, his history of betting on any business opportunity has always been intertwined with changes in the economy. For instance, in 1984 Jean-François knew how to play currencies when there was still time, coupled with courage, audacity and the ability to take risks, Jean-François bet on the fall of the US$ Dollar in 1984. By the time the global stock market crashed in 1987, Jean-François earned his firm, Thomson CSF US$2 billion. Jean-François then used the proceeds to invest in undervalued companies whilst the US economy was in crisis, in anticipation of a boom in commodities, which allowed him, while looking for crude oil investment opportunities to win the jackpot more than twenty-five years ago.

At the beginning of 2000, following the advice of his childhood friend, Jean-François embarked on a quest for black gold (crude oil) at the time when a barrel of crude oil was worth US$12 (American Dollars). Jean-François left EEM (Electricité et Eaux de Madagascar) where he was serving as Chairman and Chief Executive Officer in order to take over the management of its subsidiary Maurel & Prom, an oil & gas company. According to Jean-François, whilst the bet seemed crazy, it was worth taking the risk as Jean-François’s basic equation was simple, ‘’He was convinced that in the long-term oil prices would stabilize higher than US$30 dollars per barrel and that under these conditions, he could only make money by exploiting fields at low cost”. He then threw himself headlong into the adventure. In Singapore, he bought Energy Searcher, a drilling vessel, then quickly moved to exploration-production. After an episode in Cuba, he went to Congo, where he bought the M’Boundi field, abandoned by Total. Jean-François deposited his life insurance and his last shares in pledge to pay the 9 million dollars of drilling. In 2001, oil gushed from its first African oil well venture. In 2005, Jean-François took over the company Knightsbridge Petroleum to provide Maurel & Prom with oil fields in Venezuela and Colombia.

Jean-François  bet and risk taking of investing in oil fields eventually paid off as he won his bet. In February 2007, Maurel & Prom group sold to the Italian ENI for US$1.43 billion  the oil field of M’Boundi in Congo (more than half of its turnover), which it had acquired for a few tens millions of dollars seven years earlier and the Kouakouala deposit to Eni Congo SA. It represented more than half of its turnover. From there on, the group reduced its exposure as they took a decision to no longer depend on a single country and thus have given themselves the means to launch a large number of exploration projects at the same time across the globe. Following its restructuring and repositioning, Maurel & Prom regained its presale level of 2009, which was attributed to its Onal field in Gabon, as well as its Colombian assets.

In 2017, Jean-François sold Maurel & Prom, which had operations in Gabon, Tanzania and Namibia to Indonesian state-owned company PERTAMINA. Jean-François then devoted himself to his new passion and challenge: the quest for raw materials such as gold in Mali where he operates a mine, coal or iron, which emerging countries need so much. In his own words “Two billion human beings want to build in twenty-five years what the West has built in a century and a half. I want to be part of it!” Nonetheless,  Jean-François will not let go his passion for oil & gas and will embark on a new adventure in Colombia with his holding company Pacifico. Since 2017, he has operated the very promising Opon Oil field which is located in the Middle Magdalena Basin in Colombia.

Jean-François is a man of loyalty who does not deny his convictions, even when it upsets the financial nomenklatura. He keeps a stiff upper lip. He draws his courage from his earthly roots. He owes his asceticism to strong religious values. His foresight of the markets, he built it on his training as an economist. Pilot, former parachutist, practicing Catholic, son of a great agricultural engineer, famous for his studies in geology, he inherited his passion for wine from his father.

In 2017 he acquired Château Gigognan (France) where he operates 90 wine hectares, including 40 of the famous Châteauneuf-du-Pape. This brilliant entrepreneur with an international career became the proud owner of Gigognan. Rigorous and keen to do things by the rules of the art, Jean-François, the unconventional businessman has set himself the ambition of making this property one of the jewels of the appellations of the southern Rhône (France), while remaining a happy breeder of renowned “Salers” cows.