Before becoming the CEO of Technip in 2007, Thierry Pilenko was the President and CEO of Veritas DGC, a geophysical service company based in Houston. Previously, Thierry Pilenko occupied several managerial and executive positions at Schlumberger, a company he joined in 1984 as a geologist. He gained extensive international experience in Europe, Africa, the Middle East and Asia before becoming the President of Schlumberger GeoQuest in Houston, and then General Manager of SchlumbergerSema in Paris where he stayed until 2004. Thierry Pilenko is a graduate of the Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Géologie of Nancy (1981) and the IFP (1982). He serves on the Board of Hercules Offshore (United States). Since April 2012, Thierry Pilenko has been a member of the Supervisory Board of Peugeot S.A. (France).

« SeaOrbiter is both a technological challenge and a feat of architecture and engineering, especially submarine engineering. Because of its innovation in all of these areas, SeaOrbiter provides a new exploratory approach to the ocean and can pave the way to a rational exploitation of its resources, especially those found in the abysses, while upholding the principles of sustainable development. »