Ecocem, Europe’s leading provider of low-carbon cement technologies, has today announced the appointment of five new members to its Board of Directors. The new appointments bring exceptional technical, operational and financial expertise as the Company gears up for significant growth.
The new Board members include three Non-Executive Directors; Professor Sylvie Retailleau, Frédéric Guimbal and Brett Desmond. Alongside them are two appointments from Ecocem’s Executive leadership team: Eoin Condren, Executive Director of Corporate Development, and Olivier Guise, Executive Director of Strategy, Technology and Business Development.
Professor Sylvie Retailleau has extensive experience in science, innovation and policy. She is a Professor of Physics and Electronics at Université Paris-Saclay and served as France’s Minister for Higher Education and Research from 2022 to 2024. Professor Retailleau chairs the Ethics and Scientific Advisory Committee for the Paris-Saclay Urban Community and has been recognised as a Knight of the Legion of Honour, and an Officer of the National Order of Merit. In 2025, she was awarded the Quantum Leadership Award at the Quantum World Congress.
Frédéric Guimbal, a Civil Engineer and graduate of the École Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées, joins Ecocem’s Board with over two decades of experience in the construction industry. Having begun his career with Bouygues Construction, he then spent 17 years at Lafarge and Holcim, where he held leadership positions in the USA, India, Central Asia and France. For the last four years, Frédéric has served as Group Vice President for Construction Chemicals Performance at Saint-Gobain.
Brett Desmond is an investment professional with over 25 years’ experience in corporate finance, asset management, and business development. Brett started his career at Morgan Stanley in the Industrials Group, where he covered various sectors, including the cement industry. Brett is also a Non-Executive director of Mountain Province Diamonds Inc., Quinta do Lago Resort, and Camiral Golf and Wellness. He holds a Certificate of Business Excellence from Columbia Business School.
Eoin Condren is Ecocem’s Executive Director of Corporate Development. He has been with the Company since 2021 and brings over fifteen years’ experience structuring complex investment and joint venture transactions across Europe and the US, spanning real estate, clean infrastructure, and technology. Eoin held senior roles at WP Carey, VTS, and U+I plc before joining Ecocem where he has played a key role in shaping the company’s corporate and financial strategy, overseeing funding, capital planning and international expansion. He holds an MBA from the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School.
Olivier Guise is Ecocem’s Executive Director overseeing Strategy, New Businesses, and Technology Deployment. He brings over two decades of experience in the cement and construction materials sector, having previously held senior roles at Holcim Group in France and Algeria. Since joining Ecocem in 2022, he has led the Company’s strategic and technological development, with a focus on scaling the company’s market-leading products while building key partnerships with the global cement, concrete and construction industries.
___________________________________________________________________________________
Donal O’Riain, Founder and Group Managing Director of Ecocem, said: “The strengthening of our Board comes at a pivotal moment for Ecocem as we advance the deployment of breakthrough low-carbon technologies such as ACT. This momentum is further reinforced by the European Commission’s decision to include our ACT cement in the EU norm by 2027, the recent inauguration of our €11 million Research and Innovation Centre in France, as well as our €50 million investment in our Dunkirk facility — the first stage of a €220 million programme to significantly expand our low-carbon capacity by 2030.”
Pat Cox, Chairman of Ecocem, said: “As Ecocem enters a pivotal period for R&D, investment and growth, our strengthened Board reflects the balance of expertise we need to lead the decarbonisation of the cement sector and expand our business across the world. “The combined insight and experience of Sylvie, Frédéric, Brett, Eoin and Olivier will be instrumental in accelerating our mission to achieve net zero cement and help build a better, cleaner future for all.”
Ecocem is a pioneer of high-performance technology that cuts CO₂ emissions in the cement and construction industries. Its low-carbon cement technology, ACT, can reduce the global carbon footprint of traditional cement production by more than half.
For 25 years, Ecocem has developed and supplied low-carbon cement solutions across Europe. It operates from two plants in France, as well as sites in the Netherlands and Ireland, producing over two million tonnes of low-carbon cement each year.
Ecocem’s technology has supported major infrastructure projects including Le Grand Paris Express, Dublin’s Aviva Stadium, the Paris 2024 Athletes’ Village, and the UK’s HS2. To date, it has helped avoid 18 million tonnes of CO₂ emissions, equivalent to the annual absorption of over 800 million trees.
Investors include Saint-Gobain Group, Breakthrough Energy Ventures, and ArcelorMittal. In 2025, Ecocem announced more than €220 million of investment in new production capacity and R&I facilities to accelerate the commercialisation of ACT and support its Beyond Clinker strategy.
This includes €50 million for its first production facility at Dunkirk, increasing ACT capacity to over 1 million tonnes per year by 2026, and €170 million to build four new production lines in France.
An independent company with a world-class innovation centre, Ecocem technology and services can help the cement sector cut emissions by 50% by 2030 and build a more sustainable future.
World-first project validates more than a decade of research and demonstrates the scalability of breakthrough low-carbon cement technology
Trial with Belgian precast specialist C-concrete demonstrates ACT can reduce the carbon footprint of concrete by 67.5% without changes to existing precast manufacturing processes
