Ponant Names New CEO

There’s a new CEO coming to luxury expedition cruise company Ponant.

Ponant on Monday announced that Hervé Gastinel, a former officer-cadet and watch captain and former pleasure craft company Beneteau CEO, will take over as CEO starting at the end of March.

Gastinel will join the team at Ponant, which was acquired by investment company Artemis in 2015, ahead of its restart.

“I am delighted with the arrival of Hervé Gastinel. He is a true sailing enthusiast, who has all the skills to transform this wonderful company and facilitate the resumption of operations. After a difficult year, the next months will be decisive in accelerating PONANT’s development for the coming financial years,” François Pinault, Artemis’ founder, and manager said.

“Contributing to the restart and international development of PONANT in a sector undergoing rapid transformation is a great perspective. I look forward to joining the PONANT team, the employees on board as well as ashore, in France and abroad, and to continuing the great entrepreneurial adventure led by Jean Emmanuel Sauvée,” Gastinel said.

Ponant looks to grow post-pandemic as research shows that expedition cruising, which was just starting to gain momentum pre-pandemic, could explode. More and more cruise lines are rolling out expedition offerings and advisors, surveyed in TMR’s 2020 Expedition Cruise Outlook, sponsored by Seabourn, said they expect there to be at least a 10% to 25% increase in their sales for expedition cruises in 2021, and 18% expect to increase their sales by more than 26% during that same period.