Benoît Vallet appointed Director General of ANSES
Benoît Vallet has been appointed Director General of ANSES by decree of 31 October 2022, succeeding Roger Genet, who has led the Agency since 2016. He will take office on 15 November 2022.
A doctor, researcher and university professor, Benoît Vallet has been the Director General of the Hauts-de-France Regional Health Agency since 2020. His appointment as head of ANSES is the natural next step in a career marked by a long-standing commitment to advancing science and public policymaking for universal health, in France and internationally.
Dedicated to scientific excellence and ethical imperatives, Benoît Vallet will take over as head of ANSES on 15 November in order to lead and advance its main mission: to provide the scientific benchmarks needed to further protect human, animal and plant health from risks, in line with One Health principles.
Background
Benoît Vallet is a doctor specialising in anaesthesia and intensive care. He obtained an authorisation to supervise research in 1995. He began his career as a university professor/hospital practitioner at Lille University Hospital, where he began as an intern in 1998; he also chaired the hospital's Medical Commission from 2011 to 2013.
He then became Director General for Health until 2018 and contributed to the implementation of public health frameworks and policies on issues such as antimicrobial resistance, chlordecone, smoking, occupational health and environmental health.
Benoît Vallet has also held a number of international roles. He served on the Executive Board of the World Health Organization (WHO) from 2014 to 2017 and was involved in setting up the WHO Academy in Lyon in 2019.
In 2018, Benoît Vallet was appointed Senior Counsellor at the French Court of Auditors and Scientific Counsellor, then Affiliate Professor of the Master's degree at the Sciences Po School of Public Affairs.
During the COVID-19 crisis, he was assigned to the Paris Public Hospital System (AP-HP) on 18 March 2020, to conduct an audit of hospitals in the Grand Est, the region most heavily affected by the pandemic. He then worked for Jean Castex, the interministerial delegate for the national lockdown easing strategy, where he was in charge of health matters.
In September 2020, he became Chair of ANSES's Board of Administrators, a non-executive unpaid position. In this role, he was responsible for coordinating and leading the Board's work. The Board of Administrators is made up of representatives of the five colleges of the Grenelle environmental round table (State, associations, professional bodies, trade unions and inter-branch employers' organisations, and elected officials).
In October 2020, he was appointed Director General of the Hauts-de-France Regional Health Agency.
As a researcher, Benoît Vallet has authored more than 200 referenced international scientific publications.