Born in Thionville, France, Gilles Ripoche graduated both from the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Industries Chimiques de Nancy (ENSIC) with a Master Degree in Chemical Engineering and from the IFP School (Institut Français du Pétrole) with a Master Degree in Petroleum Engineering, option refining, engineering & gas. He joined ExxonMobil in 1998 as Adhesion process engineer at the Gravenchon Chemical plant. Gilles is fluent in French, English and has basic notions in Dutch and German.

In 2000, Mr. Ripoche ended his assignment as Adhesion process engineer by starting up the new Jinsen resin plant in China. Just afterwards, he moved to Breda,NL where he held several refining & supply roles optimizing products and raw materials between the refineries of Rotterdam and Antwerp. Gilles returned to chemicals in 2003, at the Brussels Headquarters. He held there multiple regional planning, logistics and optimization positions within basic chemicals and intermediates organizations.

Mr. Ripoche became Gravenchon refinery and basic chemicals coordination manager in 2010, where he helped improving the profitability of the refinery and managed the interfaces with harbor authorities, 3rd party terminals & logistic joint ventures (SHMPP board member). In 2012, he move to Houston, where he took the position of Basic Chemicals financial planning manager. 2 years later, Gilles joined an aromatics major project venture as project planning manager. In 2014, Gilles moved to the Gas and Power Marketing organization as AP regional business team lead & US commercial advisor for the natural gas liquid value chain. His main responsibilities consisted in leading a cross-functional team focusing on business opportunities and value generation at the interface between upstream, chemicals and refining businesses, leveraging Exxonmobil integration and scale.

Gilles returned to Gravenchon in 2016 as chemical profit improve manager before taking the position of chemical technical director in December 2017. He was leading a team of ~180 employees covering among others process technical, central laboratory, financial analysis, quality and site supply chain departments before moving to Brussels as Basic Chemicals Global Product Executive as of September 1st. During this period he was also the Exxonmobil member at the European Ethylene Producers Committee (EEPC).

Gilles is 48, married and is the father of 3 girls 19, 16 and 13.