On Wednesday, April 14, news of government revoking the work permit of Rubis Chief Executive Officer, Jean-Christian Bergeron and ordering him to leave the country, made headlines.
The deportation order, signed by the State Department of Immigration, followed weeks of a fuel shortage in the country that caused a public outcry.
The Rubis boss was accused of hoarding fuel leading to the shortage. But who is this CEO?
Bergeron has lived a reclusive lifestyle, with little details known to Kenyans about the French oil firm boss.
Bergeron, who is an accomplished senior-level executive, has amassed over 30 years of experience in the petroleum industry.
Prior to joining Rubis, he worked for Total Energies for 28 and a half years. Joining the company in October 1990, he worked in various positions including sales representative, head of regional sales, back-office manager, and project manager in Paris, France.
10 years later, he became the marketing and sales director at Total Parco Pakistan Limited before being transferred back to France as the Non-fuel Retail Director.
Bergeron later became the Total Managing Director in Cameroon for three years. He handled operational leadership roles encompassing long-term strategy and planning, human resource, budgeting and financial and commercial performance.
He returned to France to manage Total affiliate operating retail outlets for four years. In 2013, he became the Vice President of Marketing and Retail Network where he managed 16,000 retail outlets across 88 countries.
Among the operations he handled included conducting reporting and retail performance analysis and overseeing corrective action plans.
He later became the Executive Vice President in Central and East Africa from September 2015 to August 2018. Before leaving the company, he worked as the Saudia Arabia Project Director for seven months.
In May 2019, Kenolkobil hired Bergeron to oversee Rubis Energy operations. At the time, Rubis had officially acquired Kenolkobil's shareholders and took control of the oil marketing firm.
Bergeron replaced KenolKobil Chief Executive, David Ohana, who resigned in April 2019.
Rubis currently runs over 230 strategically and conveniently located service stations countrywide.
