Faculty

We are pleased to announce the appointment of Michele Oberto as Managing Director of AirBusiness Academy.

Originally trained as an Aeronautics Engineer, Michele started her career in the Design Office at Airbus France in Aerodynamics. She then moved on to work in human resources where she eventually became Head of Department of Human Resources Management for the Aircraft Division within Airbus.  Her responsibilities included defining and implementing employee policies, competence development, recruitment and mobility.

After twelve years in human resources, Michele became involved in change management, gaining extensive experience in structuring integration and performance improvement programmes.  In this role, she developed and deployed continuous improvement policies supported by green-belt and black-belt training, and all methodologies dedicated to change management

Her track record led her to become Vice President Head of Change Management for Airbus where she managed the Route 06 transformation programme.  Her duties included structuring and supervising all phases of this programme, supporting the project leaders through a team of internal consultants, delivering the right methodologies, and managing risk.

AirBusiness Academy will benefit from Michele's experience and in-depth knowledge of the aviation industry.  Her expertise in change and project management will be an asset in achieving her mission to reshape the business model and set up of the organisation in order to spur growth and innovation.
 

Emmanuelle spent seven years in the marketing division of Airbus, first in the A320 Family product marketing group then in technical marketing where she was specialist for environmental issues: noise, emissions, global warming. She was involved in sales campaigns on environment related questions, but also carried out studies showing the financial advantages of commonality between Airbus aircraft and presented Airbus to various audiences. Her previous work experience during three years was international trade teacher and financial analyst for industrial investment projects.

"The capacity and desire to learn is present in each and every one of us.  It is essential to tap into this raw material in order to enable individuals and groups to grow and to be agents in their field of practice."

Background
Brian started his career in a major publishing house in London, leading a small team of editors and running projects on multi-lingual glossaries.  He moved into the field of educational publishing and then joined the faculty of the Toulouse based engineering school: l'Institut National Polytechnique, where he taught English, Communication and Culture.  In 1997, Brian joined AirBusiness Academy (then EURESAS) and worked on training documentation before joining a major project in Airbus Industrie whose aim was to train the entire staff in the subject of Business Awareness, ahead of the company's integration process.  Today Brian is part of the Human Performance team and specialises in the fields of leadership, communication, culture, coaching, stress management and self development.

Accreditation
MBTI
FIRO-B
OPQ32
Oxford-Cambridge Diploma in Stress Management
Certified Coach (Association for Coaching, UK)

Papers
'Conscientious or Unconscious: The Converging Roles of Management Gurus and Corporate Chaplains'
Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion, Vol. 2, issue 3, 2005

'An Evaluative Study on Building the Bridge Between the Training Room and the Workplace'
Evaluation and Research in Education, Vol. 19, No.1, 2006

Pascale develops and trains on courses in project management and business improvement. Prior to joining AirBusiness Academy, Pascale supported Airbus as a consultant in project management on business improvement projects, such as Route 06. She was also part of the Airbus Project Management team working on methodology and training development. Her background includes working as a project manager for the development of safety components and as a quality manager for the automotive industry. After three years spent in the USA, she managed several projects in an international environment working for English, Spanish and Indian customers.

Mission Statement
I believe each one of us is faced with the challenge to find and develop our potential.
Organisations are complex living systems with a purpose of their own that needs to be in harmony with that of its members.  Although conflicts must not define who we are, they are a sign that we exist and share our beliefs and values.  If each person is true to oneself, we have the opportunity to transform conflict into cooperation, whilst making the most of our differences.  People have more than enough creativity to imagine and work towards a better future.  If I stop this belief, I will know that the time has come to stop training and coaching.

My favourite quotation is from Antoine de Saint-Exupery: "One man may hit the mark, another blunder; but heed not these distinctions.  Only from the alliance of the one, working with and through the other, are great things born."

Highest Degree
After my graduation as an engineer in physics (1982), I took the opportunity to research a thesis and live abroad, challenging my cultural heritage.  I was awarded a PhD (1985) for my work on "holography application to a grating - ray mask", a submicron lithography technique on membranes to mass produce semiconductor lasers.  I am currently finishing a post-graduate degree in coaching at IAE Toulouse.  The thesis I'm writing is entitled "Asian culture in dynamic coaching".  I have chosen to build bridges between martial arts ethics and coaching attitudes.  I have designed a situationnal test, based on the five elements systemic model from Asian culture.  The results of this test are used as a coaching thread that stimulates the professional dynamic.

Experience
I have been a Consultant for over 20 years.  I have been involved on a wide range of projects from an optical system test bed for satellites to the ramp-up of a nuclear pellet fabrication plant.  I have consulted for Airbus in production, engineering and information systems.  For the past few years, my focus has been on working with medium size units to lay the foundations for future activities and associated changes.  This has further developed my practice of group management techniques and strategic coaching, whilst helping me to maintain a very practical and operational approach towards innovation and change management.  I joined the ABA Faculty as a Senior Consultant in the Human Performance team to help participants experiment with new behaviours and attitudes to deal better with today's challenging environment.

Accreditation
FIRO-B

Conference Speaker
"How to manage projects without hierarchical 'power'?"
Ecole Superieure de Commerce de Toulouse (2003), France

Papers
"Computer simulation of holographic grating exposure", R.H.M. Dumas and Prof. Laybourn
IEE Proceedings, vol 132, PtJ, N. 6 (2005)

"System test bed for demonstration of the optical space communication feasibility", R.H.M. Dumas and B. Laurent

As Senior Consultant, William manages AirBusiness Academy’s finance training and consulting practice, bringing his broad and deep financial and risk management experience in Europe, the United States and Asia. Prior to AirBusiness Academy, William worked in financial analysis and risk management with Citibank, where he was responsible for portfolio forecasting and risk analysis, management control, capacity planning and budgeting. He also founded and managed consulting firms in San Francisco and in France.
William is a guest lecturer at City University of London and the Ecole Supérieure de Commerce de Toulouse Masters programmes. He has several publications to his credit and he is currently engaged in PhD research.

The French refer to a Monsieur Jourdain, who realises one day that he has been speaking prose for 40 years.  When Nigel Greenwood started his career at AirBusiness Academy in 2002, he realised he had been working on quality all his professional life.  Before joining AirBusiness Academy, Nigel was a documentation consultant, training people to write technical and business documents that their readers would understand.  Writers need to think about the needs of the audience.  There is a close parallel with quality management, which is about understanding and meeting the needs of the customer.

Nigel designs and runs training courses in quality management and soft skills. Quality areas in which he works include quality metrics, quality management at airlines and risk management. Nigel is an Airbus internal auditor. In soft skills, or communication, he designs and runs training in train-the-trainer, presentation techniques and technical writing.  His earlier teaching experience covered maths, economics, statistics, English and computer programming.

Mission Statement
'I believe that competition and compromise cannot lead to strong, sustainable, lasting and constructive relationships. We are complete only through the acceptation of individual differences. In order to accept the difference with others, we first need to reduce the ones we all have inside: between what we are
and what we think or say we are, between our beliefs and our practice.  Even if I don't always succeed in applying it, I made Gandhi's motto my own: 'Be the
change you want the world to be.' I think that the world not only starts with our family
and friends, but also with our clients, suppliers, managers, colleagues and team members.

Highest Degree
I'm currently completing a PhD in Social Psychology with the University of Exeter, under the direction of Dr. Grace Davie. Abstract of the research: 'One hundred years ago, Max Weber, one of the most respected - and sometimes contested - of sociology's founding fathers, postulated in his seminal work The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism that after a 'tremendous development', capitalism would either reach a dead end, or would enter a new era of development through the guidance of new prophets (Weber, [1904] 2003:182). Through a close analysis of the context of the 468 times the world 'prophet' occurs in the Bible and through the description that Weber gave himself to the concept of prophet in The Sociology of Religion (Weber, 1963) I have constructed the prophet's ideal type, with 14 specific characteristics, using only binary definitions. Then, I have used this ideal type as a grid of analysis, to put to the test the 23 most renown leadership and management gurus, potential candidates to the title of prophet.

Experience
I lead a team of 7 consultants, experts in Human Performance, Project Management, Risk Management and Quality Management. Before joining AirBusiness Academy in 1998, I worked as an auditor, trainer and consultant in leadership, management, self-development, communication and change management, for companies specialised in fields as various as the nuclear, supermarket, food, or construction industry.

Accreditation
MBTI
FIRO-B
OPQ32
Oxford-Cambridge Diploma in Stress Management

Conference Speaker
International Conference on Developments in Aviation Training, organised by the Aeronautical Society of India and the European Association of Aerospace Industries
Mumbai, India - May 2004
Presentation on: 'The Future of Airline Management Training'

Forging Ahead: Agenda for Change
Organised by the School of Humanities and Social Sciences of the University of Exeter 
Exeter, UK - May 2006
Presentation on: 'Two worlds colliding: Business and Religion'

Professional Network Conference
Organised by the Centre of Leadership Studies of the University of Exeter
Exeter, UK - December 2007
Presentation on: 'How deaf people can teach people in business to communicate better'

United World Colleges Youth Leadership Camp
Organised by UWC, presided by Her Majesty Queen Noor of Jordan. Honorary President: Nelson Mandela
Megève, France - July 2008
Presentation on: 'Beyond Words'

Papers
'Conscientious or Unconscious: The Converging Roles of Management Gurus and Corporate Chaplains'
Journal of Management, Spirituality and Religion
Vol. 2, issue 3, 2005

"Lessons of Silence:  What the deaf can teach us about listening - and making ourselves heard"
Strategy +Business Magazine
May 2008

Mission statement
Beatrice explains that her commitment to Quality took shape while conducting research as a student. "My belief in continuous improvement is deeply rooted in the scientific approach and my research background. My formative years were spent in labs and pilot plants running experiments.  The motto there, as in quality improvement, is to work with rigor to prove out hypothesis, reports findings and apply data analysis and discipline to try all over again".

Experience
Prior to joining AirBusiness Academy as consultant in Quality management training, Beatrice began her career twenty years ago as an engineer consulting in Quality for E.I. DuPont de Nemours in the United States.  She says jokingly that she began learning from others, training and coaching as early as she can remember, growing up in a household of five children.  Her first teaching experience dates back to the university's learning centre where she tutored chemistry and math for three years.

"My commitment to this discipline found a natural outlet in an industry striving to improve quality and customer satisfaction. I've had the privilege to drive, manage or support small scale initiatives as well as Six Sigma Black Belt projects during my career".  After her initial years as a research engineer, Beatrice held various roles as control laboratory supervisor, quality responsible, ISO management representative and consultant quality at DuPont production plant sites.

Beatrice moved to France in 2000 where she continues to work as Quality management auditor, consultant and trainer.  She specialises in Quality improvement and Continuous Improvement training.  Her courses cover a broad range of topics: Quality Management Systems, EN9100, Process Maturity and Methodology, Continuous Improvement, Supply Chain Quality and Industrial Transfers.  She seeks opportunities to bring her continuous improvement experience into the classroom and support improvement projects at Airbus/ or its partners.

She is Lead assessor ISO9000, a trained ISO14001 internal auditor, Airbus internal auditor EN9100, and is working towards Airbus Black Belt certification.

Accreditation
Statistical Process Control (SPC), DuPont Product Quality Management and Technology
Lead Assessor ISO9000, International Registry of Certified auditors (IRCA)

Conferences / Publications
Improving RPS Vantage® Quality, Delaware Quality Award Symposium, 1998
Influences upon CaC03 precipitation kinetics, American Institute of Chemical Engineers annual conference proceedings, November 1993
Master Thesis, Crystallization of Beta-lactam antibiotics, Chemical Engineers Symposium, 1987
Bachelors Honours Thesis, Synthesis of aryl-bicyclopropanes, Amercian Chemical Society student conference, 1985

Distinctions
Winner of Delaware State Quality Award, (Team award), 1997
Team Leadership awards, 1996, 1998
Dupont Marketing Excellence award, 1996
White Pigments Excellence award, 1995
DuPont engineering Bronze awards, 1990, 1991
Magna Cum Laude, Bachelor of Science, 1985
Amercian Chemical Society student award, 1984

Current Membership
American Society for Quality

Darcy is actively involved in the development of our financial management courses.  He has extensive business management experience in Latin America, Europe and China.  Darcy has created a financial-business model specifically adapted to company needs used for studying the airline's business environment, fundamentals, strategy, finances and calculating an airline's risk of default.  Prior to working in Europe, Darcy worked as an economic teacher in the Aeronautical Polytechnic Academy in Chile and as consultant in China. He also worked as a financial advisor in aerospace issues with the Chilean government.  Darcy is an AMBA council member at the Toulouse Business School and has also received the Chilean President medal for his academic performance.

Benedicte delivers programmes related to human performance with a focus on leadership behaviours such as communication and motivation. Over the past  eight years, she has developed extended experience in public relations, training and customer services. She managed an international team responsible for corporate communications in the helicopter industry, and trained commercial and technical representatives to best relate with customers.

Courses for Airbus
People Make the Difference
Leading Remote Teams
FACE
Newcomers Programme.