NEW SPACE NETWORKING

Born in 1972, Philippe Baptiste holds a PhD from the University of Technology of Compiègne (UTC) and is a graduate in civil engineering from the Ecole des Mines engineering school in Nancy. He also holds an MSc from the University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, a DEA postgraduate diploma from Sorbonne University and is an accredited research director.

A scientist from the digital sphere, Philippe Baptiste is a specialist in algorithms, combinatorial optimization, operational research and artificial intelligence. During the course of his academic career he has been a researcher at the French national scientific research centre CNRS (1999) and IBM’s Watson Research Center (2000- 2001), and a lecturer at France’s prestigious Ecole Polytechnique engineering school (2002-2012). He is the author of several books and some 150 scientific publications and communications. He headed the Ecole Polytechnique’s information technology laboratory and created the Institute of Information Sciences and Interactions before being appointed Associate Director General in 2014 of CNRS, a key CNES partner. He also previously sat on the board of INRIA, the French national institute for research in computer science and control.

Alongside his academic career, Philippe Baptiste has also helped to found and develop several start-ups and pursued numerous collaborations with digital, aviation and defence manufacturers. He was Chief Scientific Officer and then Chief Technology Officer of Total (2016-2017) and a Partner and Director with Boston Consulting Group (2020).

From May 2017 to April 2019, he was chief of staff to Frédérique Vidal, the Minister for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, and in November 2019 advisor to the Prime Minister, Édouard Philippe. Throughout this period he was in close touch with space policy.

Born in Austria, Josef Aschbacher studied at the University of Innsbruck, graduating with a Master’s degree and a PhD in natural sciences. He has had an accomplished international career in space, combining more than 35 years’ work experience at ESA, the European Commission, the Austrian Space Agency, the Asian Institute of Technology and the University of Innsbruck.

As Chief Executive Officer of ESA, Dr Aschbacher is responsible for the definition, implementation and development of Europe’s space infrastructure and activities, which include launchers, satellites performing Earth observation, navigation, telecommunication and space science, together with robotic exploration and ESA astronauts working on the International Space Station. He is responsible for an annual budget of €7 billion and a workforce of 5500 distributed across several establishments, principally in Europe.

When taking up office as ESA Director General, Dr Aschbacher published a new strategy for space in Europe, called 'Agenda 2025', aimed at accelerating significantly the use of space in Europe through major new initiatives and programmes.

From 2016–21, he was ESA Director for Earth Observation Programmes and Head of ESA’s ESRIN establishment in Frascati, Italy. He has been a key leader of the European Copernicus programme, which has grown beyond all expectations and is now considered to be one of the most ambitious and successful Earth observation programmes in the world.

He worked in various functions within ESA from 2001 onwards both in Paris and Frascati. From 1994–2000, he worked at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre, in his latest position serving as Scientific Assistant to the Director of the Space Applications Institute. From 1991–93 he was stationed as ESA Representative in Southeast Asia, where he developed projects in the Asian region while, at the same time, working in a full-time academic teaching capacity as Associate Professor at AIT Bangkok.

In 2021, Dr Aschbacher became 'Grande Ufficiale Ordine al Merito della Repubblica Italiana', the highest recognition accorded to non-Italian nationals.

Jean-Marc Nasr is Head of Space Systems within Airbus Defence and Space and President of Airbus Defence and Space SAS, appointed 1st June 2019.

He had previously been Head of Asia Pacific Region for Airbus and Airbus Defence and Space, based in Singapore from January of the same year.

From 2014 to 2018, he acted as Executive Vice President in Airbus Defence and Space, and headed France, UK, Middle East and Africa regional activities. Before that, he was President of Cassidian SAS as well as Head of Cassidian France and Security Solutions, managing notably the Secure Communications and Cybersecurity business lines from September 2012.

Jean-Marc started his career in 1986 at Aérospatiale in Les Mureaux, near Paris, France, where he spent three years in Research & Development, while preparing his PhD thesis in physics. Then, he was responsible for the development of satellite image analysis activities and was promoted in 1990 to Director of the satellite imagery analysis service at the Cannes, France site of Aérospatiale.

In 1997, he was appointed as President and Chief Executive Officer of Fleximage, a subsidiary of Aérospatiale based in Paris specialising in image analysis software development for intelligence services. During the first four years, revenues increased fivefold.

In 2001, he became President and CEO of Spot Image, a newly created subsidiary of the French Space Agency CNES (Centre National des Etudes Spatiales) and EADS (now Airbus). Based in Toulouse, Spot Image commercialised images acquired by the SPOT satellite constellation.

In July 2005, he joined EADS Defence & Security (rebranded Cassidian in 2010 before being integrated as Airbus Defense and Space) as President of EADS Secure Networks, a subsidiary specialising in critical communication systems. He was then promoted to CEO of Integrated Systems, which developed systems and services for customers in the defense and security field around the world.

Born in 1961, Jean-Marc obtained an Engineering Degree from the Advanced School of Electricity (SUPELEC) in 1985 and a PhD in Physics from Paris University (Paris 7) in 1989. Married and father of three, Jean-Marc is a licensed private pilot. Jean-Marc has also been knighted ‘Chevalier de l’ordre national de la Légion d’honneur’ as well as ‘Officier de l’ordre national du Mérite’.

Florence VERZELEN is Dassault Systèmes’ Executive Vice President in charge of Industry, Marketing & Sustainability since 2018. Her role is to grow the portfolio of solutions and significantly increase the revenues of Dassault Systèmes in the 12 industries it serves, in order to achieve sustainable growth and rapid business development. To this end, she focus on creating “forward looking” industrial solutions that will help all industrial players to transform through digitalization. Florence has also created the sustainability function within Dassault Systèmes, with the vision that digital solutions can help transform the industries to help them become more sustainable. She is also leading Dassault Systèmes’ service organization, transforming its business model towards “outcome based” solutions.

Before this latest appointment, Florence was working at Engie, a world leader in the energy sector – holding different positions, as Business Development Vice President, Engie Qatar CEO, Performance Plan Vice President and finally Engie Europe COO.
Florence has an extensive experience in both public and private sector, having held different positions in the European Commission and the French Administration.

She is also an experienced board member, with board position at PSA and currently at Air France; CNES, the French Space Agency and Institut Montaigne, the leading think tank in France. Florence is a graduate of Ecole Polytechnique / Corps des Mines.

Born in 1964 and graduated from Centrale Paris, Charles Beigbeder began his career in 1989 in the Matra Group (Airbus). After this first experience in the aerospace industry, he turned to investment banking in the 1990s, working for Banque Paribas, Crédit Suisse First Boston and then MC-BBL in Paris and London.

In 1997, he founded SELF-TRADE, a pioneer in online brokerage in France.

Taking advantage of the deregulation of the energy market, he created POWEO in 2002, an independent electricity and gas supplier.

For the past ten years, he has been investing in early stage through Gravitation, his industrial and financial holding company, which creates, initiates and supports new entrepreneurial ventures in the fields of energy, mobility, media and new technologies.

He also manages Audacia, an AMF management company he founded in 2006, which has become a leader in growth capital by providing quasi-equity for French SMEs, also active in innovation capital and real estate financing dedicated to coliving.

Driven by a strong interest in quantum physics and anticipating a strong demand for investments when the second generation of quantum technologies arrives on the market, he launched in 2018 at Audacia the Quantonation venture capital fund dedicated to Deep Tech startups developing quantum technologies. To date, the fund has invested in more than 20 startups and made a final closing of 91 million in June 2022.

Since April 2022, the Expansion, Aerospace and Defense fund has been created.

And we are working on the creation of a fund dedicated to the energy transition.

Charles Beigbeder has been involved in several movements related to business and community life. He is President of the CroissancePlus association, a group of high-growth companies, and a member of the Executive Council and President of the Entrepreneurship Commission of the MEDEF.

Charles Beigbeder is the author of five books: Positive Energy, published in 2008 (Editions du Toucan), Is the energy crisis an opportunity for the future? published in 2009 (Jean-Claude Lattès), Since it's impossible, let's do it, published in 2012 (Jean-Claude Lattès), Thank you, bosses! published by Librio (Flammarion) in 2015 and Charnellement de France published by Pierre-Guillaume de Roux in 2016.