Alain Picard appointed new Chairman of the French Railway Industry Association

Alain Picard becomes Chairman of the French Railway Industry Association. He succeeds Patrick Jeantet, who had held the position since January 2024. After two and a half years at the helm of the Association, Patrick Jeantet wished to pass on the torch in order to fully devote himself to new professional responsibilities. Alain Picard is already a member of the FIF's Board of Directors, and in keeping with the actions undertaken over the past three years, he will work in the interests of companies in the railway sector, their competitiveness, their attractiveness, their spirit of innovation and their development. The railway industry today must respond to numerous challenges: traffic growth, increased maintenance needs, regeneration and modernisation of the railway network, adapting the system to climate change, consolidating the industrial workload of rolling stock plants, the sector's fragile economic situation, decarbonisation challenges, the opening of passenger transport to competition, innovation, the attractiveness of railway trades, and public finances under strain. The FIF's actions will necessarily need to be carried out in close consultation with all railway stakeholders. Before joining SNCF in 2001, Alain Picard held financial management positions in several industrial sectors. In 2009, he became Chief Financial Officer of the SNCF Group before taking over as CEO of SNCF Logistics in 2013. In 2020, he joined CAF (Construciones y auxiliar de ferrocariles) as CEO. He is today its President for France. « I am honoured to have been chosen to chair the French Railway Industry Association. Rail is a key lever for the decarbonisation of transport; it is also a French industry of excellence that must be protected and developed. I will devote my energy and my experience to serving this industrial sector and the companies that are part of it » says Alain Picard.