PARIS — (BUSINESS WIRE) — January 31, 2019 — ESI Group (FR0004110310 – ESI), pioneer and leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping solutions, announces the appointment of Cristel de Rouvray as Chief Executive Officer, effective the 1^st February 2019. Cristel de Rouvray, age 42 and previously Board Leader of the Group and an Executive at an American Non-Profit Organization, succeeds Alain de Rouvray, founder of the company who remains Chairman.

Cristel de Rouvray has a long track record with ESI Group and has been an ESI Board member since 1999. Appointed Board Leader, she served as Chairwoman of the Compensation, Nomination & Governance Committee, as project leader for succession planning, and as head of an operational committee for critical Human Resources related topics. She has been a key driver in building and supporting ESI’s talent development and management decisions. Through this experience, Cristel has gained both a deep understanding of ESI‘s expertise, market, people and culture, and has successfully established a productive working relationship with the industrial ecosystem, the Board, the Group Executive Committee and key managers.

Alain de Rouvray, Founder and Chairman, comments: “Reaching the conclusion of a multi-year process of managing my succession as CEO of the company, the Board has decided that Cristel is the best candidate to take the CEO position. Her deep knowledge of our company, her commitment over the past 18 years, her remarkable management and business intelligence skills, and her successful relationship with the leadership team are major and decisive assets as we move the company forward and capitalize on the huge opportunities in front of us. I will actively support Cristel to ensure that our culture of innovation, as well as our business and social ethics, are preserved in this challenging period. I am committed to aiding our new leadership team to navigate the accelerated and changing landscape in which we find ourselves and our business.”

Cristel added: “I am fully energized to take on this CEO role in the midst our transformation as we position our company as the essential partner for industrialists aiming for zero real tests, zero real prototypes. ESI Group, over decades, has built a solid foundation of amazing talent, customer credibility and inspiring solutions, with consequent and wide recognition from our peers, partners and customers. My job, and that of our next-generation leadership, is to unleash, with the active support of the Board and its Chairman, this legacy on the strategic and socially responsible mission of enabling industry to innovate in the face of mounting expectations of the safety, sustainability and relevance of the products they develop, manufacture and support.”

Over the past 14 years, Cristel has successfully held Executive roles at College Track, an American non-profit organization. Founded by Laurene Powell Jobs, this organization is recognized for its excellence in helping, to date, more than 3000 youth from low income neighborhoods to enter and graduate from college. She has partnered closely with the College Track CEO and Board of Directors on the organization’s strategy and execution, acting as a catalyst for tenfold growth over the past decade.

Cristel has dual French and US American nationality. She holds a BA in Economics and a Master in International Policy Studies from Stanford University, where she graduated Phi Beta Kappa. Cristel received a PhD in Economics from the London School of Economics (LSE) where she earned the prize for the best thesis in her field.

Find out here: Cristel de Rouvray complete biography.

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About ESI Group

ESI Group is a leading innovator in Virtual Prototyping software and services. Specialist in material physics, ESI has developed a unique proficiency in helping industrial manufacturers replace physical prototypes by virtual prototypes, allowing them to virtually manufacture, assemble, test and pre-certify their future products. Coupled with the latest technologies, Virtual Prototyping is now anchored in the wider concept of the Product Performance Lifecycle^TM, which addresses the operational performance of a product during its entire lifecycle, from launch to disposal. The creation of Hybrid Twin^TM, leveraging simulation, physics and data analysis, enables manufacturers to deliver smarter and connected products, to predict product performance and to anticipate maintenance needs.

ESI is a French company listed in compartment B of Euronext Paris. Present in more than 40 countries, and addressing every major industrial sector, ESI Group employs about 1200 high-level specialists around the world and reported annual sales of €135 million in 2017.