Earth observation and international cooperation
My career has been guided by a constant ambition: to connect Earth observation, Earth system sciences, data and services infrastructures and international cooperation in order to turn environmental information into trusted, actionable knowledge.
Across research leadership, large-scale data infrastructures and scientific diplomacy, I have worked to build durable capacities that help countries, institutions and communities understand environmental change, strengthen their sovereignty over data and knowledge, and make better decisions for sustainable transitions.
Executive Profile
Who I am
Expert executive with 30 years of experience driving global Earth observation and scientific diplomacy initiatives across Europe, Latin America, and Africa. Specialist in connecting high-level science with strategic public policy.
What I do
I create trusted data ecosystems and operational knowledge systems. By bridging communities and institutions, I transform complex environmental data into actionable decision-support tools for global sustainability.
What I bring
Proven mastery in scientific diplomacy and international resource mobilization. I deliver the transition from strategic vision to territorial infrastructure, ensuring durable institutional capacities and operational excellence.
Leadership approach
Strategic architectural leadership focused on distributed infrastructure and multidisciplinary cooperation. Committed to building resilient partnerships that empower local decision-makers through global data excellence.
My profile combines executive leadership, scientific direction, infrastructure management, diplomacy, innovation and operational implementation. These competencies have been developed through more than three decades of work across research institutions, international cooperation frameworks, public agencies, private-sector partnerships and multilateral Earth observation initiatives.
Core Competencies
Since 2017, I have served as Director of Data Terra Research Infrastructure, one of Europe’s leading distributed infrastructures for Earth system data and services. Data Terra brings together 34 institutions, including CNRS, CNES, IRD, Ifremer, Météo-France, INRAE, MNHN, BRGM and other major national partners, around a shared ambition: making Earth system data, services and expertise accessible and usable for science, public policy, innovation and society.
This role involves the strategic leadership of a large distributed ecosystem, with around EUR 45 million per year in consolidated resources, financial responsibility, auditable compliance, and the strategic allocation of resources across national data hubs, platforms and services.
It also includes senior-level oversight of a distributed workforce of more than 450 scientists, engineers and digital experts, covering recruitment, team organisation, performance evaluation and talent development, while fostering an inclusive, high-trust and accountable working culture.
I lead the preparation of annual operating plans, multi-year strategies and transparent reporting to national and European governance boards, ensuring alignment between institutional priorities, budgets, teams, partnerships and delivery objectives.
For more than 30 years, I have worked to transform multi-source Earth observation data, models and environmental knowledge into decision-support systems for public policy, sustainable development and territorial action. Over more than twenty years, I have led and co-led multidisciplinary research laboratories, geospatial centres and research-action structures involving more than 200 researchers, engineers and technical experts, including within the Maison de la Télédétection ecosystem.
A defining feature of this leadership has been the progressive integration of social sciences into Earth observation and environmental research. Within ESPACE, and later ESPACE-DEV, I supported the evolution from a primarily geospatial and environmental research structure towards a broader multidisciplinary unit combining Earth observation, geography, ecology, environmental sciences, digital technologies and social sciences. This transformation, built over more than a decade with several universities and research partners, gave full meaning to integrated approaches to environments and societies.
I have directed or coordinated around sixty national, European and international research and innovation projects, including major distributed infrastructure programmes such as GAIA Data and several European Open Science Cloud initiatives. These projects have helped structure open, FAIR and interoperable data and service ecosystems for Earth system sciences, while connecting research communities, digital infrastructures, public institutions and users.
A constant feature of my scientific trajectory has been the ability to anticipate emerging issues and transform them into research agendas, projects, teams and services. I played pioneering roles in environmental decision-support systems through the ADAGE EUREKA project, artificial intelligence and the environment as early as 2005 within US ESPACE, health–environment interfaces, continental spatial hydrology, and landscape-based approaches within observatories.
These advances were developed at the interfaces between disciplines, but also through innovation in organisational structures, partnership models and scientific tools. Through ESPACE-DEV, I also contributed to several International Joint Laboratories with partners in the Global South, supporting long-term scientific partnerships, training pathways and co-produced knowledge on environmental and territorial transitions
Stakeholder engagement and resource mobilisation have been central to my career. I have consistently worked with scientific communities, public-policy actors, institutions, users and local communities — particularly in countries of the Global South — by involving them from the earliest stages of projects, sharing realities and visions, and co-designing frameworks that make cooperation useful, equitable and sustainable.
I have mobilised and managed more than EUR 150 million across more than 60 national, European and international projects, with strong experience in complex multi-partner and multi-donor programmes. My success in competitive calls has relied on the ability to communicate at the right level, bring together scientific, technical and financial partners, build trust around a shared vision, and demonstrate credible expertise, governance and delivery capacity.
As IRD Representative within the French Embassy for Brazil and Paraguay, I led scientific diplomacy efforts, supported more than 20 signed cooperation agreements, and developed triangular cooperation involving Latin America, Africa and Europe, including initiatives presented in the context of COP21. I also co-designed regional Earth observation programmes such as AMESD, GMES & Africa and MESA, Amazonian cooperation with ACTO countries, and the EUR 12 million SEAS-Gabon initiative, which contributed to the emergence of AGEOS as a sustainable national Earth observation agency.
For more than twenty years, I have developed public–private and innovation partnerships with geospatial start-ups and industry actors, anchored in public-interest objectives, sovereign capacities and equitable data value chains
For more than 30 years, I have supported the emergence and development of start-ups, spin-offs and innovation initiatives in Earth observation, geomatics, environmental information systems and digital services. This has contributed, directly and indirectly, to the creation of new private-sector activities and jobs, by connecting research laboratories, public institutions, industrial partners, start-ups and service providers around emerging environmental and geospatial needs.
Several of these partnerships helped open or consolidate new fields of activity, including space-based hydrology with companies such as CLS and BRL ingénierie through consortium-based projects, maritime surveillance, sustainable management of marine resources, coastal monitoring, environmental risk assessment and territorial information services. Many of the start-ups, spin-offs and innovative companies associated with these research ecosystems have developed into lasting structures and operational services.
I have served on incubator, technopole and project-selection bodies, and contributed to structured partnerships with private-sector actors in space, New Space, geospatial technologies and environmental services. Around platforms such as SEAS and DINAMIS, I have built partnerships with major industrial actors including Airbus Defence and Space and Spot Image, as well as with smaller innovative companies and specialised service providers.
Within Data Terra, I have supported a dynamic innovation activity, with more than 30 contracts, agreements and collaborative projects signed with private and public partners. These collaborations aim to create win–win partnerships, balanced governance frameworks and innovative economic models, particularly in the geospatial sector.
My approach to public–private cooperation is to promote partnerships when they strengthen public value, operational robustness, innovation and long-term sustainability, while preserving scientific integrity, openness, data sovereignty and public-interest objectives.
Throughout my career, I have sought to anchor my activities within long-term strategic partnerships between countries, institutions, research organisations, space agencies, development agencies and regional actors. I consider this strategic framing essential: it is what transforms projects into durable cooperation frameworks, and technical initiatives into shared institutional capacities.
In Earth observation and its applications, this approach has often taken the form of agreements designed to better integrate space-based information into development policies, environmental management and territorial planning. Earth observation provides exceptional sources of information, but its real value depends on the commitment of countries and institutions to invest in the conditions of use: infrastructure, skills, governance, data access, services, user communities and long-term ownership.
In French Guiana and Amazonia, I contributed to the development of regional cooperation with Brazil and the Guiana Shield countries, supported by national and European funding, including FEDER programmes in the French overseas regions. These initiatives helped build the foundations for long-term cooperation on remote sensing, coastal ecosystems, forests, biodiversity, water resources and environmental monitoring.
I also contributed to building new strategic partnerships between IRD and major space agencies, including CNES and the Brazilian Space Agency, as well as with Brazilian institutions such as INPE and other scientific partners. In Gabon, I contributed to the creation of AGEOS through the SEAS-Gabon initiative, which brought together the Gabonese Government, IRD, CNES, AFD, Brazil/INPE, USAID and other partners around a shared ambition: developing a sustainable national Earth observation capacity serving public policy, forest monitoring, environmental management and regional cooperation.
Beyond space agencies, I have worked with development agencies and international cooperation actors — including AFD, GIZ, Canadian cooperation and others — to position Earth observation as a tool for integrated environmental management, sustainable development and institutional capacity building. These partnerships were not only about data access; they were about helping countries and institutions build the capacity to use data effectively for their own priorities.
In the Pacific, following Data Terra initiatives to strengthen regional action, we helped develop a community around geospatial challenges through events such as the Oceania Geospatial Symposium in 2022, with the participation of GEO, the Pacific Community, regional agencies, countries and island territories. This work contributed to the emergence of projects aimed at strengthening geospatial capacities for Pacific islands and territories facing the combined impacts of global change, climate risks, coastal vulnerability and natural hazards.
My approach to strategic partnerships is therefore based on a simple principle: cooperation is sustainable when it is co-designed, institutionally anchored, scientifically robust, useful for public action and aligned with the priorities of the countries and communities it is meant to serve.