Speakers

After more than 10 years as an operational manager in Manufacturing-Engineering and as an industrial program officer, Phillipe Altairac has moved to transformation positions to shape the future of H/C industrialization & co-development. Since 2019, as Ho digital transformation in Airbus Helicopters industry, he is pushing the digitalization as a lever to create a breakthrough and bring important values in the E&E processes and way of working.

He is married and has 2 young sons.

Hobbies: Surf & Ski and trying to keep connected to our earth

Monsieur Laurent Bendavid est Directeur Général du Système d’Information et Chief Digital Officer de Dassault Aviation depuis février 2023. Rentré à DASSAULT AVIATION en 1997, tout d’abord au sein des équipes de la Direction Générale Technique dans les équipes Calcul Scientifique, il a évolué dans le monde de l’IT en passant de l’intégration CFAO, à l’architecture, à la production informatique, aux projets et à la fonction de DSI.

CTO at one of the world’s leading eVTOL companies and a pioneer in sustainable aviation. Michael has overseen incredible growth, with the company transitioning from a 40-person start-up to listing on the NYSE in under three years. He played a pivotal in shaping the company strategy, securing funding, overseeing the VX4 aircraft design and fostering strategic partnerships with Honeywell, Rolls-Royce, Leonardo, GKN, Microsoft and Dassault Systèmes. Vertical’s VX4 aircraft has already attracted a global orderbook for over 1400 aircraft from a broad range of customers including American Airlines, Japan Airlines, Virgin Atlantic and Avolon.
Before joining Vertical, Michael spent 22 years at Rolls-Royce after graduating with a first class honours degree in Aeronautical Engineering from Bristol University. He progressed through increasingly senior roles in design, development and service support across a wide range of Rolls-Royce civil and military aero engines. Most recently, as Head of Future Technologies reporting to the group CTO, he co-wrote the group’s electrical strategy, routinely reported to the board on disruptive technology and business model threats and opportunities and led a global multidisciplinary team responsible for generating future concepts and developing, protecting and transferring cutting edge technologies across all of the Rolls-Royce businesses.

Valentin Chomel leads the strategy and product definition at Beyond Aero, where his responsibilities range from conducting market analysis to defining aircraft specifications, creating development roadmaps, and building the program’s business case. His prior experience includes working in flight test instrumentation for next-generation engines and future vehicles in the civil, defense, and space sectors for worldwide programs at Safran.

Yvan-Michel began his career in 1991 in the software industry. He spent 10 years in marketing, business development and management at large international software vendors such as Dassault Systèmes, Engineering Animation Inc. (now Siemens PLM).
Since 2001, Yvan-Michel works in the Venture Capital industry and is an active contributor of the investment and innovation ecosystem of high growth startups. He is board member of several innovative companies such as Exotrail, Cysec and Vestack. He was an investor of Comitéo (acquired by Natixis), Sevenhugs (acquired by Qorvo) and WebGeoServices (acquired by Capza). He is focusing on Digital & Deeptech ventures and is particularly in charge of a European SpaceTech Fund and the Paris Region Venture
Fund.
Yvan-Michel holds a MSc in Computer Science from ESIEA.

Philippe Pham leads the Earth Observation and Science (EOS) programme unit within Space Systems.
Present in four European countries covering 1.1 billion Euros of revenues and with more than 1000 employees, this unit has a wide spectrum of skills to address all the institutional and commercial challenges of Earth Observation, space observatories and planetary exploration.
Before joining EOS, Philippe was Head of Data Analytics and Applications within the Digital Transformation Office for Airbus Defence and Space leading challenging analytics projects throughout Airbus Defence and Space Business Lines and Functions for a better operational efficiency and new business models and customer services revenues.
Philippe has a long experience in Airbus and held different leadership and management positions in defence and space systems and services, system engineering and large programmes, product lines, and proposals management, in both telecommunications and earth observation systems and services. He has worked in France and Germany.

Geraldine Naja is Director of Commercialisation, Industry and Competitiveness at the European Space Agency (ESA). A French national, Geraldine holds over 30 years of experience, expertise and knowledge within the European space sector, in programmatic, managerial and strategy development positions.
She is responsible for elaborating and implementing ESA’s industrial and procurement policies, conducting negotiations with industry, and managing procurement for all the Agency’s activities and programmes. Furthermore, Geraldine is responsible for enabling and boosting European space commercialisation and business development ambitions through innovative programmes, tools and partnerships.
Geraldine holds an MSc in Engineering and Propulsion and an MSc in Political Sciences, from the French École Polytechnique and the École Nationale Supérieure de Techniques Avancées (ENSTA), and the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po) respectively.
Within various universities and institutes, Geraldine carries out teaching assignments about space policy, with the aim of inspiring future generations.

Olivier Pedron, 46 years-old, graduated from the Ecole Spéciale Militaire de Saint-Cyr with a major in international relations, holds a Master's degree in strategy from the University of Paris Sorbonne and an MBA from the Instituto de Empresa in Madrid. He began his career as an officer and helicopter pilot in the French Army. He joined Rockwell Collins in 2011 where he held various positions in the strategic and commercial departments. In 2019, he became President and Managing Director of Rockwell Collins France, as well as of L'Hotellier in 2020.
During his career, Olivier Pedron has led ambitious development projects, in France and internationally, while deploying innovative growth mechanisms.
As Chief Operating Officer of SOGECLAIR and Director of the Solutions Business Unit since September 2021, Olivier Pedron has been appointed Chief Executive Officer of SOGECLAIR on May, 11 2023.

Ms. Caldwell is Senior Director for Spirit AeroSystems Global Research and Technology, leading R&T engineering, program, technology strategy, and IP across Spirit’s global enterprise. Ms. Caldwell is a senior leader in advanced aerospace technology development with over 20 years’ experience leading research and development activities and organizations across the defense and commercial aerospace communities. She served 15 years in air vehicle structures and materials advanced research programs at NASA, DARPA, Johns Hopkins University, and the Office of Naval Research prior to joining Spirit AeroSystems.

Ms. Caldwell holds a BS in Engineering Science and Mechanics from Virginia Tech, and a Masters in Aerospace Engineering from the University of Maryland.

Victor is Lead Business Development & Marketing at The Exploration Company, a European start-up that builds reusable spaceships, which fly to space stations around the Earth and the Moon – with the ability to return to Earth. He has served in various roles at Airbus and Airbus Defence & Space both in engineering and strategic management roles: from starting as development engineer for navigation satellites, followed by a system engineering role for Earth Observation Satellites, to supporting the SVP Top Executive Management & Talent Acquisition at Airbus Group. He was co-founder of a non-profit organization within Airbus, called The Moon Race, that aimed for a sustainable exploration of the Moon. He is curator and global shaper of the World Economic Forum’s Global Shaper Hub in Munich, a non-profit organization of young changemakers committed to improve the state of the world by driving dialogue, action and change. He graduated from University of Applied Sciences Munich and the Technische Universität München (TUM).

Pierre Chastanet is Head of the Cloud and Software Unit at the Directorate-General for Communication Networks, Content and Technology of the European Commission. There, he oversees the development and implementation of European policies on the cloud and the free flow of data.
Mr. Chastanet has worked for 17 years at the European Commission in various management and policy-making functions, in the areas of cybersecurity, data protection, ICT for societal challenges, green ICT, and innovation in the field of telecommunications.
Previously, Mr. Chastanet acquired more than 11 years of experience in digital, mainly in various management positions within a large multinational company.
He holds an engineering degree in telecommunications from Telecom ParisTech, a master's degree in international politics from the Free University of Brussels (ULB) and a BSc in economics from the London School of Economics and Political Science. He also recently completed an executive program at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government.

Engineer and graduate of the IAE, he began his career at Dassault Electronique (now Thales) in naval electronic warfare systems (France and export). In 1999, he joined Giat Industries, now Nexter, and held various positions mainly around the Leclerc tank (studies, hotline, fixed MCO contract). He took over the management of Digital Global Solutions in March 2017 and was appointed Group Director of Innovation and Digital Transformation in June 2019.

He is a former auditor of the 52nd national session Armament Economy of Defense of the IHEDN.

Lionel Rouby has been SVP Head of Digital within Airbus Defence and Space since 1 January 2023 and is a member of the Airbus Defence and Space and Executive Committee. He is responsible for driving the digital transformation while serving the division with state-of-the-art IT solutions.

With more than 25 years of aviation experience spanning jetfighter, helicopters, A400M and commercial aircraft, Lionel is passionate about aviation in all its forms and always looking for win-win solutions and customer satisfaction.

Previously, Lionel was SVP Innovation and Digital Solutions for Airbus Customer Services. In this role, he was leading the digital transformation of the  Customer Services business, leveraging digital innovation and responsible for the development, delivery and support of digital solutions for Airlines and Lessors, exploiting in particular cloud solutions and big data analytics capabilities.

Lionel also served as Chief Engineer of the A400M programme and NH90 programme where he also held leadership positions of increasing responsibility within the design office and as the Technical director of NHIndustries, the joint venture managing the NH90 program gathering Airbus Helicopters Group, Agusta-Westland and Fokker.

Lionel started his career at the French Flight Test Centre (CEV) at Istres as military test engineer for the Mirage 2000 programme. He participated in and managed several test campaigns to qualify the integration of new armaments or avionic systems.

Lionel graduated from Ecole Polytechnique (ParisTech) and from Sup’Aero (ISAE, Toulouse).

He also has a pilot license and passed several qualifications (IFR, Multi Piston-Engines). He has logged about 1000 flight hours as pilot, co-pilot or back-seater.
He is 51, married and has 4 daughters.

After studying aerospace engineering at Ecole Polytechnique, ISAE-SUPAERO and Stanford University, Olivier Lesbre joins the Délégation générale pour l'armement (French Defense procurement agency) in 1990, first in the field of strategic missiles guidance. From 1994 to 2000, he works on French cruise missiles programs, first as technical director, then as program manager from 1997.
In 2001, after taking part in the launch of OCCAR, the European armament acquisition agency, he becomes deputy program manager for the A400M military transport aircraft.
He joins in 2006 the French Embassy in London as armament attaché, with a mission to give a new momentum to the franco-british armament cooperation.
From 2009 to 2014, he is in charge of DGA Maîtrise de l'information (ex-CELAR), a 1000-staff strong technical center, expert in the field of electronic warfare. He manages the merger with LRBA, another technical center with 350 staff in the fields of navigation and missiles, and the launch of a new cyberdefense activity.
Since September 2014, he is President of l’Institut supérieur de l’aéronautique et de l’espace (ISAE-SUPAERO), a world-leading graduate school for aerospace engineering. Located in Toulouse, ISAE-SUPAERO awards every year more than 780 postgraduate degrees to students from 62 nationalities.

Laurent Gabet, Head of R&D Innovation , Airbus Geo– with 30 years of experience in Earth Observation, Laurent has held several roles within Airbus, but for the last several years he has managed an R&D optic team focused on the development of new remote sensing and photogrammetric features to enable new products and services, derived from our commercial EO satellite sensors. During the last two years Laurent designed and implemented a digital platform on the cloud to host Airbus EO satellite imagery and enable analytics services. Laurent has a MSc in science computer and robotic.

Graduated of ESG and INSEAD, Philippe Miltin began his career at Xerox as a sales representative in 1987 and then joined Altos two years later where he held the position of Channel Manager.
In 1991, he joined the American company Silicon Graphics, of which he was appointed CEO France in 1997. Thereafter, he successively occupied the positions of Senior Vice-President for the South-East region, then EVP EMEA until 2006.
Philippe Miltin joined the computer company Bull in 2006 as EVP Products and Servers Division. In 2010, he became EVP Computing Solutions Business Line, he was then appointed EVP Chief Commercial Officer.
He joined the Atos teams in 2015, as SVP Global Market Leader for Manufacturing Retail and Transport in charge of the P&L of the entire activity.
Since 2019, Philippe Miltin has been in charge, as Senior Vice President Sales for Manufacturing and Big Data/ HPC for the Atos group.
In September 2022, Philippe Miltin was appointed head of OUTSCALE, which subsequently became a Dassault Systèmes brand. Its main objective is to position OUTSCALE as the first sovereign and sustainable operator of trusted cloud solutions. Its mission is to operate the group's platforms, to strengthen the company's position as a sovereign and sustainable strategic partner of public administrations and industries, and finally to make OUTSCALE the leading operator of trusted Business Experience.

Rasika Fernando is the lead expert on aeronautics and space sectors at Bpifrance. Rasika spent 15 years in the aeronautical industry, at Airbus as a PhD candidate, Onera and Safran, at first as a research engineer working on turboengine aeroacoustics and novel architectures such as the Open-Rotor. He then took charge of Research & Technology programs, before leading the CFM LEAP-1A and -1B evolution programs at Safran.
At Bpifrance, Rasika acts as an advisor on matters related to aerospace. He is also in charge of implementing, coordinating and promoting the calls for projects related to the aeronautics and space sectors, within the France 2030 public investment framework.
Rasika holds a PhD in mechanical engineering from Sorbonne University and an MBA from Sorbonne Business School (IAE de Paris).