Keeping ZEROe funding on track
After joining Airbus in 2012, Sophie held several different positions in purchasing before she landed on the ZEROe team. She works to secure external funding for the project and is proud to contribute to a project that aligns with her personal views on sustainability.
What is your role on the ZEROe team?
I am the Public Funding Lead in the Operations and Business Strategy team of the ZEROe Programme. Whilst we have already hit some important technical milestones in the project, there are still many challenges ahead of us. My role is to secure external funding for the programme to ensure we can continue to work towards our ambition to bring a hydrogen-powered aircraft into service by 2035. I work daily with other Airbus teams to align internally on our hydrogen funding needs, and then present plans to the relevant funding bodies to get their support.
What attracted you to the ZEROe project?
As the mother of two children who are highly sensitive to environmental issues, I feel that I have a moral obligation to ensure that the next generation will also be able to explore the world freely. For them to do so, a decarbonised aviation industry will be absolutely necessary.
What is the best part of working on ZEROe?
The best part of being on the ZEROe team is having the opportunity to interact with highly knowledgeable experts from various domains on a daily basis. Pioneering is not an easy task. There are often doubts, outside pressures, and sometimes reluctance from stakeholders, but the objective of driving the decarbonisation of our industry is stronger than all of that. We are driven to overcome these challenges and we do so in a spirit of solidarity and mutual support.
What attracted you to working at Airbus?
Living in Canada for a couple of years made me want to pursue my career in an international and multicultural environment. Aviation allowed me to come back to France to visit my family when I was far away, so I really believe in aviation’s purpose of connecting people beyond physical and cultural boundaries.
What would you say to convince a potential recruit who is interested in working at Airbus?
I think it is a really unique place to work because internal mobility is so highly encouraged. Employees who are curious by nature, like me, have the opportunity to keep learning and evolving throughout their careers. You can change departments, jobs and even countries, all without leaving Airbus!
What are your most memorable moments at Airbus?
Each programme’s first flight is a unique and exciting moment. I was on the tarmac in 2013 for the first flight of the A350, and in 2018 for the A330neo, which are two programmes I had the pleasure of working on.
Everyone at Airbus contributes in their own way to making those milestones possible. I’m looking forward to being on the tarmac once again for the first flight of our hydrogen demonstrator, which will represent a key milestone on the road to decarbonising aviation.
