A graduate from École Nationale d’Administration, Mestrallet has been at the forefront of French energy giant GDF Suez since 2001. A force behind GDF’s push into Asia, Mestrallet struck impressive deals with Malaysia’s Petronas and China’s Cnooc. Exceedingly driven, he recently launched a wind project in Romania to improve the diversification of the GDF Suez energy mix and continue its expansion in promising markets through team expertise and technical synergies. The animated chairman and CEO had some recent spells of arm-wrestling with the French state after his attempts to charge fair domestic gas prices were blocked.