| Pascale, what lead you to the position of European affairs director? I joined Altran after a few years in sales departments of two international companies. I joined Altran in 1998 as a manager. I became a senior manager, developing my business unit and coaching younger managers. I enjoyed especially opening up new business accounts by seeking new opportunities in different industries.
Early in 2005, I decided to give another turn to my career. I moved to Pr[í]me, a branch of Altran, where I focused on positioning the offer and skills mapping activities.
At the end of 2005, I chose to get involved in European affairs.
What is your role in this position? I have three major responsibilities: -
Strengthening Altran’s visibility towards European institutions. We get involved in European research by publishing position papers with our consultants. We also organized European events such as the Altran Innovation Conference which brought together industry representatives, researchers, scientists, European decision makers, and Altran experts to discuss innovative solutions and ideas in Europe. -
Developing business at the European Union level. We coordinate international actions with the aim of winning European calls for tenders and of contributing to major European projects. -
Increasing the added-value we bring to all Altran clients thanks to EU-related intelligence gathering. We brought for example high-standard services in the aerospace industry thanks to our knowledge of the “clean sky” directive and to its technological consequences. We decided to focus on the energy, transportation, ICT, aerospace, defence and health industries.
What are the opportunities at stake for Central and Eastern Europe? Central and Eastern is fundamental while developing European partnerships. It is a focal point of European Funding programmes such as the European Regional Development Fund. It is also a crucial region when providing a European dimension to a project, whatever the funding programme concerned. Our role in this context consists in contributing to industrial projects by facilitating the access of Central and Eastern Europe to EU funds.
Altran managers also benefit from a strong support from us. It enables them to create business opportunities thanks to collaboration with other Altran subsidiaries and to our lobbying activities at European level. They save time and costs through our missions of internal coordination and of external representation. In brief we help them win international projects that they would not be able to manage alone. It is clearly a chance for consultants, who can get involved in major European projects!
As a conclusion, what do you think about your career in Altran? I’m glad that Altran offered me the opportunity to choose the career that I wanted. I got involved in technical and human challenges that have kept my motivation as fresh as the day I joined!
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