FiveT Hydrogen

Pierre-Etienne Franc is considered as one of the leading architects of the hydrogen economy. He was the founder of the Hydrogen Council, which brings together the world’s top energy, transportation and infrastructure multinationals active in the sector.

After leading Hydrogen activities for Air Liquide, Franc co-founded the FiveT Hydrogen investment platform in 2021, and currently serves as the Chief Executive of Hy24, a joint venture managing the world’s first clean hydrogen infrastructure fund. Since the beginning of his career, Franc has built a development approach driven by a belief in the power of alliances, joint ventures, and co-development. It has helped to open new businesses (co-generation), new territories (Russia, China, Brazil in the steel markets), new markets (hydrogen energy, IT), and new technologies (electrolysis, hydrogen tanks, fuel cells in forklifts).

In 1994, he wrote his first book, with Christopher Hogg focusing on the importance of customer management, which was published by Dunod. On the occasion of the COP21 in 2015, Franc published a book that detailed his vision for the hydrogen economy, with a preface by Pascal Lamy. His 2017 “Entreprise et bien commun” is a reflection on the role of business in improving society, with a preface by Gaël Giraud. Franc graduated in 1993 from France’s HEC business school, where he was awarded the HEC Foundation Prize and the second prize of the Ernst & Young Foundation for his final thesis on industrial joint ventures.

As Managing Partner David is focusing on the development of the FiveT Hydrogen investment platform and therefore on many of the non-investing topics of the General Partner. This includes strategy, incubating new fund initiatives, building the FiveT Hydrogen operating partner network, process management, brand building, service provider management, human resources and information technology.

David was born and raised in Cologne, Germany where he also studied Business Administration.

He is an execution-oriented general manager, with a focus on managing transformation and corporate development projects. Today, being an experienced strategy executive, David has a background of roughly 10 years in corporate strategy, including positions at T-Systems International, BWI and Avaloq Evolution.

Before joining FiveT Hydrogen, Nicolas was Managing Director of Hydrogen Europe. The 250+ member association representing the hydrogen industry in Europe. Nicolas has 11 years at the core of the development of the hydrogen sector with an excellent knowledge of all regulations impacting hydrogen and a wide range of funding schemes and how to make projects fit these. He has 14 years of experience in building and implementing a series of Public Private Partnerships with a total budget of 4,2 billion in the hydrogen sector (FCH JU, FCH2JU and CHE JU) on both public and private sides. Nicolas holds a PhD in law and lectured at the University of Louvain in “Public finances” and “legal and economic aspects of intellectual property”.

• Lead compliance & regulations expert
• 20+ years experience in capital markets & investment management
• 15+ years at FiveT Capital AG

Sébastien brings ~ 20 years of experience in M&A, investment, venture capital, asset management and project finance, with ~ 50 transactions led and closed.
Over the last 7 years, he was in charge of investments and asset management in the hydrogen field, for Air Liquide hydrogen energy world business line and ALIAD venture capital arm. He had board seat representations in three companies, as well as an operational deputy general management role in one hydrogen asset company, in charge of financing, fundraising and M&A. Previously he spent 4 years as M&A senior manager for Air Liquide Group, executing and closing ~ 30 small- to mid-cap transactions worldwide, within the industrial gas world, with a focus on innovative fields (biogas, hydrogen, technologies, advanced electronic materials). Previously he spent 8 years in Investment Banking for Lazard, UBS and Barclays, advising for mid- to large-cap transactions - M&A, leveraged finance and ECM. He was mainly involved in the following sectors: Global Industries, Utilities & Infrastructure, Telecoms, and Financial Sponsors. He started his career with a focus on project finance and acquisition finance in telecom infrastructures. He holds an MSc in Telecom Engineering from ENST Paris (Engineering Graduate School) and an MBA from Essec (with exchange period in the MBA of University of Chicago, Booth Graduate School of Business).

Pierre-Germain Marlier is a co-founder of FiveT Hydrogen and Investment Vice-President at Hy24, a joint-venture between FiveT Hydrogen and Ardian.
He brings 8 years of business development experience at Air Liquide. In 2013, he worked in marketing of reliquefaction systems for LNG carriers, after which he moved to Houston,TX to work on M&A opportunities. 2 years after, PGM developed a biogas supply portfolio for bus fleets in the UK. PGM then moved to California to lead the development of Hydrogen supply chain and refueling infrastructure, including a $150M hydrogen liquefaction plant. PGM was co-inventor on a pending patent about the use of renewable electricity in hydrogen liquefaction. In 2019, PGM joined Air Liquide investor relations team, acting as hydrogen ambassador for financial markets. In 2021, he left Air Liquide to co-found FiveT Hydrogen, which now manages a €2bn infrastructure fund dedicated to the hydrogen economy as “Hy24”, in Joint-Venture with Ardian.
Pierre-Germain Marlier holds a MSc in Industrial Engineering from Albi’s School of Mines and a business management degree from ESSEC.

As the former CEO of Faber Industrie SPA, the world leader in High Pressure Gas Cylinders, Gian Luigi has acquired in-depth knowledge of gas storage systems — which is crucial not only for hydrogen transportation, but also for the scaling up of the H2 industry as a whole.

Alexandru Floristean is an expert in market, legal and policy research. Since 2018, he has been leading Hydrogen Europe’s intelligence department and, in that position, has developed a deep understanding of the market and regulatory framework of Clean Hydrogen technologies in Europe. Alexandru will provide unique insight both in terms of sustainable finance and EU policy and legislation — all to help bring our H2 ambitions to life.

With 20+ years of experience as Alstom’s Chief Operating Officer and Managing Director, and an expertise in rolling stock solutions, Thierry Best is ideally positioned to contribute to FiveT Hydrogen AG’s ambitions in hydrogen mobility projects.

The Univ.-Prof.Dr.-ing. Armin Schnettler, is former CEO New Energy Business at Siemens Energy and VDE (Association for Electrical Electronic Information Technologies) chairman & H2 Upstream Electrolysis Expert. Before, he held several positions at ABB. His main research topics are: “Energy Transition & Decarbonization”, mainly the integration of renewable energy sources in power systems and markets, Storage Systems, Electrification of all sectors and Future of Manufacturing.

Louis has 20+ years of experience as project manager in the automotive and space industry and then as business developer, deploying hydrogen stations and electrolyzers at Air Liquide and then Cummins Inc. Louis Sentis is now the President of his own hydrogen consulting company named Hydvisor.

In a career spanning 30 years and various investment firms such as Citigroup, Bank of America and Schroders, Adam helped professional investment managers and corporates understand the key commercial and technology developments in New Energy. He was one of the earliest senior industry analysts to identify the significance of the energy transition for industrial companies and the promise of hydrogen. In recent years he has published several primers on the industrial gas, Electrolyser and fuel cell companies as well as the potential opportunities for hydrogen as a fuel or feedstock in commercial vehicles, planes, heavy industry and long-duration energy storage. He combines Knowledge of the hydrogen industry with expertise in company analysis, valuation and knowledge transfer.

Natalia is a passionate transformation leader with over 25 years of experience in new technology commercialization, business scaling and digital transformation in the energy and ICT industries. She held leading positions at Siemens AG and Siemens Energy in the areas of sales, strategy, procurement, and in-house consulting, including four years in the hydrogen industry a. o. as VP and Head of Projects New Energy Business responsible for the worldwide project business with hydrogen electrolysis systems.