Alain Rousset is President of the Regional Council of Nouvelle-Aquitaine since 2016, after a historic merger of three regions. He was re-elected in 2021 for a new term. He was previously President of the Aquitaine Regional Council between 1998 and 2015. Passionate about innovation, industry, agriculture and history, among other things, Alain Rousset has helped make Nouvelle-Aquitaine one of the most attractive, dynamic, supportive and sustainable regions in France – setting up, since 2019, through the roadmap “Neo Terra” the energy, agricultural and ecological transition into a real system, as well as placing his Region in the front line of the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic and its consequences. The Aeronautic, Space & Defence sector is one of the strongest at regional level, representing more than 900 entities and around 70 000 direct jobs.

Ngandu Mupangilai is policy and project officer at the European Commission for the European Defence Fund (EDF) in the field of Defence technologies. These technologies address challenges that are relevant across several defence capability domains, such as, i.e., defence medical support, cyber defence, energy technologies, defence environmental transition, materials and components. Moreover, he follows up on and contributes to the drafting of the EDF work programme in the area of” Energy resilience and Environmental transition”. Furthermore, he is also contributing to the effective implementation of the EDF and its precursor programmes (i.e. Preparatory Action for the Defence Research (PADR) and the European Defence Industrial Development Programme (EDIDP)), with a particular emphasis on the areas of the research, development and innovation of defence technologies, including emerging, enabling and disruptive defence technologies. Prior to this position, he served as policy and project officer for many years in other European Commission research programmes (H2020 space programme and H2020 secure societies).

Général de brigade aérienne Julien SABÉNÉ is Chief of Staff of the Air Force Command in Bordeaux since 2022. He is working with général de corps aérien Laurent LHERBETTE, Air Force Commander and General Officer of the Defense and Security Zone for the Southwestern part of France. Graduated from the « École de l’air et de l’espace » in 1990, GBA Julien Sabéné also worked as Director for the Centre for strategic Aerospace studies and has been in charge of the National Centre for Air Operations Command from 2014 to 2017. His professional experiences also include missions for the Government’s Secretariat of defense and national security and for the air base in Djibouti.

The « Général de corps aérien » (Ret) Jean-Marc Laurent joined the French Air Force in 1978. As an aeronautical engineer from the « Ecole de l’Air » and a fighter pilot, he was entrusted with several operational commands in France and during international operations. A graduate of the Ecole de guerre, the Institut des Hautes Etudes de Défense Nationale (IHEDN), the Centre des Hautes Etudes Militaires (CHEM) in Paris and the Georges Marshall European Center for Security Studies (Germany), his first position as a general officer gave him responsibility for operations at the French Ministry of Defence’s Strategic Affairs Delegation (2006). He will then lead the Center for Strategic Aerospace Studies (2008). In 2011, he was entrusted with the command of the South-Western France defence and security zone and the command of the technical-operational department of the French Air Force. In 2013, he left active duty and founded the Defence & Aerospace Chair at Sciences Po Bordeaux where he develops training and dissemination actions (towards French and European students and auditors) on defence issues and research on Space Warfare.

Safran Ceramics, R&T platform of Safran for high-temperature composite technologies, develops revolutionary materials and technologies up to TRL6 for Safran products with reduced environmental impact and increased performance. Nicolas Laval is project and program manager at Safran Ceramics. He joined Safran in 2014 as head of Material and Process department. He is also a Non Governative Expert within the Captech Materials and Structures of the European Research Agency (EDA).

I graduated in business administration, and I work in the European Commission since 1998 (before I worked in a bank), always in the energy sector. I have covered different positions and currently work in the energy efficiency unit; inter alia I am responsible for DG ENER of the Consultation Forum for Sustainable Energy in the Defence and Security Sector (CF SEDSS), an action funded by Horizon2020 budget and managed by the Commission in cooperation with the European Defence Agency since its inception in 2015.

Aliette Quint joined Hensoldt as Director of Public Affairs France in October 2019. She currently holds the position of VP Governmental Business Development, Political Affairs and Innovation, and is a member of the French Executive Committee. After managing a Public Affairs consulting firm in Brussels, where she spent 10 years working with European and national public decision-makers, Aliette joined the Air Liquide group in 2011 as Deputy Director of European and International Affairs. She then advocated for new energies as global Director Regulations & External Affairs for the World Business Unit Hydrogen Energy from 2015 onwards. Within and for Air Liquide, she also held different board positions, such as company’s corporate venture ALIAD, its subsidiary in charge of fuel cells deployment Axane or Hydrogen Europe, and participated in the launch of the Hydrogen Council. Aliette has an EMBA degree (Franco-German) from ESSEC and Mannheim University, as well as an MSc in European Law and Politics from the Institute of European Studies in Bruxelles and a Master’s in Political Science from the Institute of Political Studies in Lille and Münster University in Germany.

Within the Operational Energy Division of the French General Staff, MAJ Raphael Danino-Perraud is in charge of international cooperations related to operational Energy (NATO, PESCO, EDA, EDF). As an example, he co-manages the PESCO project “Energy Operational Function” with the DGA. He also monitors the question of energy policy and future energies.

EASY POWER S.A. is an engineering house specialising in Autonomous Hybrid Solar Systems for Military and Civil applications, active in Greece and abroad. Owner of an International Patent( Patent No. 1009645) for Autonomous-Hybrid Energy Production Unit based in Ship Containers. During the fifteen years of its existence, the company has made notable accomplishments in the Design, Study and Installation of Solar Stations and customised solutions in Solar Hybrid Energy Production Systems either in On or Off-grid areas. Its experience and expertise include the Design, Study and installation for the Transformation of one of the largest Military Airport in the Southeast of the Mediterranean sea (Suda-Crete) to a Net Zero Energy and Near-Zero Carbon Emissions Base. Mr Nikolaos Savouris, is a Co-founder and Vice-President of the company, has a long experience as a designer and project manager in solar systems combined with high-voltage battery storage systems. In addition, he is Vice-President of the Association of Energy Storage Producers in Greece and holds an MSc in Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering.

With an academic background in material sciences and a PhD in ecodesign, Fabien Michelin has joined the Armament General Directorate of the French Ministry of Defence in 2017, as ecodesign leader for land systems, transport aircrafts and tactical drones military programs. Since 2021, he is energy capability architect and coordinator of the energy capability and innovation pillar within the French energy and defence strategy. This strategy main objective consists of making the energy transition an operational advantage in order to increase performance and to reinforce the Ministry’s resilience. The capability pillar aims at integrating energy issues at the early stage of armament programs and in the innovation roadmap. He is also the national coordinator for the Energy and Environment CapTech and is involved, at national level, in the preparation of the European Defence Fund on energy thematic.

After his diploma of engineering in electronics and a master degree in automatic control and production engineering, Eric Grivel received his PhD in signal processing in 2000 in Bordeaux (France). He joined Bordeaux Institute of Technology (Bordeaux INP) in 2001 as an assistant professor and then as a professor in 2011. It should be noted that Bordeaux INP groups together 6 internal schools and 3 partner schools. These 9 public engineering graduate schools, members of the Bordeaux INP Nouvelle-Aquitaine Group, count 3,400 students and offer 20 engineering specialisations including 5 through apprenticeship programmes. For more than 20 years, Eric Grivel has been with the Signal & Image research group at IMS lab (which is a joint research unit for the French National Center for Scientific Research CNRS, University of Bordeaux and Bordeaux INP). His research activities deal with statistical signal processing with applications in speech and audio processing, mobile communication systems, radar processing, GPS navigation and biomedical. He was the head of the Telecommunications department at ENSEIRB-MATMECA, one of the internal schools of Bordeaux INP, from 2010 to 2017. From 2014 to 2022, he was in charge of the scientific interest group, Albatros, gathering Thales Avionics, Thales Defence and Mission Systems, University of Bordeaux, Bordeaux INP, University of Limoges, University of Poitiers, CNRS and INRIA. Since 2020, he has been involved in ASSETS+ project, an Alliance for Strategic Skills addressing Emerging Technologies in Defence, funded under the Erasmus+ Programme. He is currently Vice dean in charge of the international relations at Bordeaux INP.

Involved, both in project management or project management assistance, in the creation of thematic sites dedicated to scientific and technical culture, D. Huguet took part in projects such as “ La Grotte Chauvet 2” (Ardèche, France ; nearly 3 million visitors since 2015) from design to production, with more expertise in the exploitation and mediation of knowledge.
TARMAQ, future “Cité des savoirs aéronautiques et spatiaux” in Mérignac (Bordeaux Area, France), is an innovative concept that aims at making the Aerospace sector more attractive to a wide audience by showcasing its jobs, competences and innovations on a unique site at the heart of the Nouvelle-Aquitaine Region. TARMAQ will contribute to making sure the ASD sector has access to the necessary skills and workforce to successfully carry out its transition towards a greener, more responsible industry.

Benoit Consolini retired from the military with the rank of Colonel in 2017, after having occupied several positions, notably in the Core Joint Forces Air Component at NATO Air Command in Ramstein (Germany) and in the Air Force mechanics training center located in Nouvelle-Aquitaine. He is since 2017 Training Director at AEROCAMPUS Aquitaine. This association created in 2011 is a campus dedicated to aeronautical training. It has an EASA Part 147 agreement. AEROCAMPUS Aquitaine is sponsored by the Région Nouvelle-Aquitaine and is renting the facilities that the Région bought to the Defence Ministry in 2011. AEROCAMPUS mainly trains students, teenagers and adults, in the field of aircraft maintenance and aircraft production in different ways: Scholarship, Apprenticeship, Continuing Training, Training for foreign students, in support of AIRBUS or Dassault. For the maintenance and production training, AEROCAMPUS Aquitaine hosts about 300 students in initial training and trains about 450 adults a year in continuing training. Other AEROCAMPUS Aquitaine activities include Cabin Crew training, seminars organization, and missions abroad for training and examination (non- exhaustive list). AEROCAMPUS Aquitaine is a key player in the regional and national aeronautical ecosystem, by providing manpower in support to its partners, and also by working for the reach and reputation of the Air Defence and Space sector.

Michel is a Senior Industry Executive with an extensive experience in aerospace. He graduated from Bordeaux Business School and Bordeaux University (Economics and Human Resources). He is also an alumnus of the London Business School and INSEAD Business School. He has lived in France, the West Indies, Thailand, and in the UK. He has held senior management positions in Aerospatiale (now Airbus, 1977-1986), Rolls-Royce Turbomeca Limited (1987-1991) and Turbomeca (now SAFRAN Helicopters engines, 1991-1993). Between 1993 and 2001, Michel was the Managing Director of McAlpine Helicopters Ltd in Oxford (now AIRBUS Helicopters UK). He was a Rolls-Royce senior executive between 2002 and 2021 as President Europe North Africa for the Rolls-Royce Group and he is now senior advisor to Rolls Royce. He was nominated by the French Air Force Chief of Staff in 2010 Colonel of the Citizen Rserve (Colonel de la Réserve Citoyenne). In 2013, he was awarded Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) by Her Majesty the Queen Elisabeth II.Michel was recently appointed advisor for industrial affairs by the British Embassy for the Aquitaine region. He is Chairman of the Bordeaux University Trust and is member of the Board of the Franco-British Chamber of Commerce. After a term as President, Michel remains actively engaged in the aerospace association USAIRE as Executive Vice President.

With over 20 years of global marketing experience in the aviation and aerospace industry, Richard PERROT has been appointed in 2021 VP Strategy and Marketing of the Global Business Unit (GBU) Defense Mission System at Thales. In this role, Richard is also responsible for the ESG domain.
Richard joined Thales in 1998 and has held key positions of increasing responsibility leading global Marketing, Strategy, product policy and sales initiatives. Before his appointment within Defense Mission System, he worked 15 years in Avionics and more recently he was Vice President of Strategy & Marketing of the InFlyt Experience BL (In Flight Entertainment), based in California.

Ophélie Tan is the Vice-President of the association ORAJe. With the full support of the aerospace association USAIRE, their common goal is to bring the aerospace and defence industries closer to students and young professionals. This talent pool gathers today more than 300 people today. She started her career not so long ago at Dassault Aviation, as a Strategic Buyer for Electrical Harnesses after graduating from Grenoble INP Phelma in Materials Science Engineering and from ESSEC Business School in Purchasing and Supply Chain Management.