Credit: ArianeGroup
ArianeGroup, jointly owned by Airbus and Safran, has announced that its Board of Directors has appointed Christophe Bruneau as CEO, succeeding Martin Sion, who has held the role since April 2023.
Bruneau joins ArianeGroup from Safran Aircraft Engines, where he has served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of the company’s Military Engines division since 2020. Bruneau will assume the role on 1 April.
On 8 October 2025, ArianeGroup announced that Martin Sion had decided “not to seek the renewal of his mandate as CEO.” During his tenure, he oversaw the introduction of the Ariane 6 rocket in July 2024 and its first full year of operations in 2025, which included four Ariane 62 flights. Before departing at the end of March, Sion is expected to see out the first flight of the Ariane 64 rocket, scheduled for 12 February.
While his tenure of almost exactly three years was relatively short, it was not unusual for an ArianeGroup CEO. Following the company’s founding in 2015, Alain Charmeau became its first chief executive, serving for four years before André-Hubert Roussel took over in early 2019. Roussel presided over a period marked by continued delays to the delivery of the Ariane 6 launch system and was replaced after four years by Martin Sion in April 2023, a little more than a year before the rocket’s inaugural flight. Although Sion’s tenure was a year shorter than that of his predecessors, it broadly fits the company’s seemingly established CEO turnover rate.
While not atypical for ArianeGroup, the company’s average CEO tenure sits notably outside wider international norms. According to data from Russell Reynolds Associates, which publishes an annual index tracking CEO turnover across publicly listed companies worldwide, the average tenure of an incumbent CEO in 2025 stood at around 7.2 years.
With the Ariane 6 launch system now fully operational and the company working to quickly ramp up to its maximum launch cadence, ArianeGroup appears to be entering a period of relative calm. This could allow the 58-year-old Bruneau to break the company’s recent pattern of relatively short chief executive tenures and move closer to global norms.
Keep European Spaceflight Independent
Your donation will help European Spaceflight to continue digging into the stories others miss. Every euro keeps our reporting alive.