Pierre Bahurel

Pierre BAHUREL is the CEO of Mercator Ocean International, one of the world’s leading operational oceanography organisations, delivering ocean information worldwide. A graduate of the highly reputed Ecole Polytechnique (Paris, France), he has worked on harnessing satellite altimetry, numerical modelling and data assimilation for operational oceanography. In 1995, he was one of the founders of Mercator Ocean and was appointed its first Executive Director. Since then, Mercator Ocean has become an International organisation, entrusted by International bodies with public interest assignments such as R&D projects, marine services delegation and foreign policy missions serving the International Ocean Governance policy of the European Commission. One such body is the Copernicus Marine Environment Monitoring Service of the European Union (CMEMS), which is recognized worldwide as the global leader in providing reliable, state-of-the-art, core marine information online. As Chair of the Expert Team on Operational Ocean Forecast Systems (ETOOFS), Pierre is fully involved in the international structuring of operational oceanography and is also committed to the successful implementation of the UN Decade of Ocean Science for Sustainable Development (2021-2030) piloted by the Intergovernmental Oceanographic Commission of UNESCO. Pierre is a forerunner in leveraging ocean science and technology into a genuine Digital Ocean, an indispensable tool for achieving a sustainable ocean.