Thank you Thales and the ATM industry

There are many ways to define leadership. To me, it’s about growing, steering and protecting a business, an opportunity, a group of people, a set of values, a future, while delivering against a present: operational and financial KPIs, mission critical products or programs, employees and customers experience and satisfaction. While you're accountable to the shareholders or to executive leadership, it is also a responsibility towards a team to deliver a safe place for people, somewhere fair and compliant where diversity and creativity can thrive, where ideas turn into services and products that have a positive impact on society.

For over three years, this is what I have been focusing on while leading Thales Airspace Mobility Solutions Business Line. From Melbourne to Kansas city, with the global team of AMS we've worked hard to improve our products, our relevance to the market, our competitiveness. We raised the bar on diversity, we pushed aviation stakeholders to act now on environmental impact, we've made acquisitions, we have pioneered drone traffic management, we improved our solutions and platforms so that air traffic controllers and ANSPs could better operate, we introduced Cloud, Saas and Machine learning as well as new business models. All this while delivering against our commitments on demanding programs that where mission critical for planes to keep flying safely around the planet. All this while doubling down on understanding how to solve our customers pain points and challenges. I actually felt encouraged by a recent survey showing that our customer satisfaction went up from 60% to close to 90%, and by the visionary statements some of our customers made this month at our Better Sky Together symposium.

At AMS, we have been promoting open concepts and data sharing. We've worked on fostering pure digital native ways of working, and at the same time we've enforced that the one who’s coding in the cloud from a Wework office feels equally considered and part of the team as the one that is deploying a turnkey system or servicing some radar or navaids equipment in a remote location somewhere in the world (after all we service 180 countries). We pushed so that marketing managers, hardware or software engineers and program directors working on some of the biggest and most advanced and critical ATM systems in the world feel all valued.

There was a crisis, we've been hit by it too and some hard decisions had to be made, we tried to do it with the best sense of respect and solidarity. We fought our best to protect each and everyone's opportunity. 

As I move on to a new industry, I’d like to say how privileged I felt to work within the ATM global community. The ATM industry is a family. So many experienced and dedicated people who throughout the world keep our skies safe, they’ve been welcoming and they have taught me so much. @Maurice Georges, @Florian Guillermet @Frederique Lelaizan @Christophe Rouquie, @Jason Hartfield, @David Webb, @Michelle Bennetts, @Peter Kearney and the whole Coopans board @Kevin Shum @Korn?l Szepessy, @Eamon Brennan @Henrik Hollolei @Christine Berg, @Vincenzo Smorto, so many more.... At the end of the day, I have a sense of proudness as I feel we have achieved collectively a lot.

I am also immensely grateful to Thales as a company, starting with those that trusted me with the responsibility of AMS especially Christophe Salomon, Alex Cresswell and Patrice Caine. I am grateful for their decisive, visionary, pragmatic and supportive management. Thales is an amazing talent pool filled with dedicated hard working and well minded women and men, a full house of scientists, builders and engineers working across the globe on some of the most challenging and exciting topics with a sense of purpose. I am also grateful to the many courageous innovators and front-line engineers, developers, sales and marketers, finance controllers, the whole management team of AMS I was fortunate to work with.

As I move on 1st of July towards a new challenge, I want to deeply thank all my 1800 direct colleagues from AMS, and all those at Thales LAS and Thales group that allowed me to be part of a fantastic team and journey. Special thanks at AMS to Corinne (the real boss), Hervé Ma, Hervé Mo, Benjamin, Carine, Fran?oise, Fabien, Kais, Gilles, Todd, Sandrine, Thierry, Christophe W, Hugh, Philippe BF, Markus, Marc F, Sabine, Toufik, Estelle, Sonia, Morgan, Lorraine, Bobby, Gabriel, Chris, Nicolas, Xavier, Muriel, Christelle, Philippe S, Bernard T, Jean-Philippe, Cedric, Tiago, Luc L, Daniel, Julie, Guillaume, Areski, Jeremy, Marie, Sergio, Stuart, Alex, Kevin, and Jean-Marc, Philippe and Emmanuel, Special thanks to my highly supportive colleagues from LAS in particular Alain, Hervé B, Emmanuel S, Frédérique M, Djalal, Frédéric D, Véronique, Virginie, Philippe N, Chris, Pierre, Thomas, Serge, Benoit,... and further in the company Alex, Chris, Jean-Christophe, Kevin, Olivier,... that list could be so much longer.

Many many many thanks

Jean