Vincent G. Sabathier

Vincent Sabathier is senior fellow and director for space initiatives at CSIS. He is also senior adviser to the SAFRAN group and consults internationally on aerospace and telecommunications. He is president of Als@tis, a telecommunications company he founded in Toulouse, France, in December 2004. Until September 2004, he served as the representative of the French Space Agency (CNES) in North America and as the attaché for space and aeronautics at the embassy of France in Washington, D.C. There, he focused on strengthening bilateral dialogue and cooperation with all branches of the U.S. government involved in aerospace. Mr. Sabathier has served in many roles in the aerospace industry, with the French Ministry of Defense, CNES, and Arianespace, where he was actively involved in the development of Ariane 5. Arianespace selected him to negotiate production contracts for Ariane launchers and later appointed him program manager for follow-on projects they financed.

Mr. Sabathier has written more than 50 articles and reports and lectured at a variety of conferences and symposiums. He has also taught space transportation systems at the University Paul Sabatier in Toulouse. He received his degree from École Centrale de Nantes in France and performed research work at the Colorado School of Mines with a grant from Martin Marietta Astronautics. He later specialized in space systems at the École Nationale Supérieure de l’Aéronautique et de l’Espace, Toulouse, and holds an international management degree from ESSEC, Paris. He participated in the Executive Education Program in Strategic Issues in Mergers and Acquisitions at INSEAD, Fontainebleau, France.