Gauthier Narjoux joined Airbus after graduating from his Master in Project Management at SKEMA Business School. Today, he is working as a Project Manager in Airbus Secure Communications.
Hear from him as he tells us about his journey within Airbus so far.
Educational and Professional path
Gauthier first joined Airbus in 2017 after an apprenticeship as a PMO in Valeo. After high school, he directly joined SKEMA Business School where he pursued first a Bachelor in Business Administration and then, a Master Project and Program Management. He decided to be Project Manager thanks to an internship he completed back in China. He then joined Airbus as a Junior Project Manager.”
Managing a project by understanding customer needs
Although Gauthier does not have a technical background, he tries to understand the customer's technical needs and communicate those needs to his team. Working as a Project Manager, Gauthier has a transversal position, he works with engineers, campaign managers, system architects, clients and partners. He aims to have a good and trusted relationship and understand every involved party while respecting deadlines and financial budget of the project.
“I am currently working on Descartes STCA, which provides a Military Air Traffic Management service (voice/data) to the Air Force.
Offering a cross-site, highly reliable (Air Traffic Management compliant), IP-based service, with complex interfaces to other systems. My role is to understand our customer's needs, share them with our core team and turn it into a functioning system. To compensate for my lack of technical background, I work closely with the technical manager and this relationship of trust is essential for a complex technical project to run smoothly.”
A must-have technical background is not necessary to join Airbus
Of course, having a technical background is easier to understand and sell our project, especially in secure communications, but the real Project Manager firstly brings all involved parties together with a common objective. Having a technical partner who compensates for the technical part does help a lot, because I can focus on the Project Manager missions, which is managing costs, optimizing time and the team productivity, proposing mitigation plans if needed etc.
“Working at Airbus allows any employee to plan his career within the company. Internal mobility is a great deal for someone who wants to try different but linked positions within a company. Also, Airbus has a great reputation worldwide which allows me to become more rigorous with installed processes, and gain professional experience.”
Although secure communication in the defence sector seems extremely technical, do not be deterred if your profile does not fit the position description. Have a try, if you are interested in defence and innovation, showcase your Project Management skills.
Like Gauthier, do you want to join a trusted team working on innovative projects? Apply to our open positions.
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