#10 | What Space Teaches Us About Leadership with Berengere Houdou

Welcome to Top Talks, the podcast by the other perspective. Today, we don't have a Dutch version. We could do a French version because we have a French guest. We have a new Béranger, who do? Bonjour à tous! A new Greek album! Merci beaucoup! So, but now we will just keep speaking in English. Yes, I will hand over to Lenneke. Yes, and welcome to the Top Talks podcast. And great to have you in the studio. While I was preparing for this interview, I did some research on the internet about you. And there was an impressive summary coming. So, I will do some reading about who you are. And let's see if it's correct. And we're going to talk about leadership in a complex environment. And I think if anybody knows about complexity, it's you. You're shaping the future of space exploration. And you make sure that we do it responsibly. And you build a career at the European Space Agency, where you've led some of Europe's most ambitious space initiatives from heading ASAS Lunar Exploration Office to your current role of clean space. And it's at the forefront of developing technologies for the future moon missions while driving the sustainability of space activities. It's a really cool field. And I mean, we talk to a lot of leaders who are currently leading in complexity on Earth, but you go next level. You have an engineering degree from Superlek and a master's from MIT. And you combine deep technical expertise with international leadership. But what makes your journey especially interesting, according to my research, is that it's not just about the rockets and spacecraft, but it's also about collaboration, innovation, long-term thinking, and solving challenges that have never been solved before. And today we will explore what it takes to lead from the edge of human possibility, what businesses can learn from the space sector, and why sustainability matters just as much as beyond Earth as it does at home. Thank you very much for being here today and welcome. So it was my research. How did I pass the test? Thanks a lot, Lenecker, for this very nice introduction. No, indeed, I've been working for a long time to reach the surface of the moon to explore what is still to be discovered. I now move recently to a new position with new challenges, which is more about sustainability. And indeed, I think it's a good summary. Sustainability is not only about Earth's premises, but it goes much more beyond space, and Earth are very connected. You may, of course, are aware. We are more and more satellites are launched. We are relying every day more and more on space technologies. And now everything the question is, how do we make this sustainable? How do we ensure that satellites are used to their maximum extent in orbit, or that they are also coming back to Earth in a safe manner? So that's the next challenges. I'm working in a European context, as you mentioned. So that's also a very important dimension of my job, both within the team I'm leading, but also with all the stakeholders of the projects I'm working on. I'm deeply and convinced European women. So I am very happy to work with all those different cultures in engineering, but also in project management to make this happen. So thanks a lot for welcoming me today. And, yes, happy to exchange with both of you. Yes, yeah. And thank you for being here, because I think your story is so different from a lot of other stories that we have been hearing about, especially around the whole space side of it. So for the people who don't know that much about how it is to focus on space all the time, where there may be some questions that you sometimes get when you go to birthday parties or things that you might think this might be useful for people to know more about before we dive in a bit deeper. So one very important aspect of working on space missions and satellites is that once you launch something, it, of course, doesn't come back, which means you cannot intervene on it if something doesn't work. And this drives a lot of way on how we develop our missions and how we make sure they are actually very well tested before we launch them. So this is quite different from what we usually develop products owners. We also take usually a lot of time to develop. So a cycle to develop a product in space can be quite long, particularly for scientific missions, where we can go to, of course, far planets. When we develop satellites for telecoms of Earth observation, it can be a big faster also in the commercial perspective. But at ESA, where I'm involved, we are dealing a lot with, let's say, quite long cycle of development. And what is long for a scientific mission can be between five and 10 years before you see the results. It's comparable, maybe also, to long-term planning of, I don't know, water management sometimes, begin frustration, you need to develop. One thing also important to realize is that, actually, the space age, as I call it, is rather young. We have started to go into space on this since about the '50s, the '60s. Yeah, yeah. So you don't know that much yet. We are at the infancy of space. And that's what is very exciting. A lot is to come. Much more complex missions have to come. We are going to talk about complexity. So technically, there are so many things we can do in space that we are not doing yet. And that's where really, I think, we can contribute. And it's important to be able to manage how we are going to basically develop even more space operations. And we need to do it in a sustainable way, the same way we are trying to do it on the Earth. I'm smiling because you say, actually, our knowledge in space is quite young. So immediately, I'm a visual thinker. I have space and diapers in my head. And then I was thinking, actually, Berenger, who were you and diapers, in what kind of nest did you grow up with your parents and was working in space relationship with space? Was that always your dream as a little girl or were there other dreams as well? A lot of questions at once, but I will. How did I come to space? It's difficult to say. I actually, I always wanted to do studies or let it to space. And since I was quite young, I've been quite in, let's say, engineering and innovative family alone environment because we have actually a family company and my father created a company in engineering about developing new products, particularly in electronics. He's an entrepreneur. And so we have been as a family, of course, exposed to a number of questions and just a life of a small company in engineering. He funded about 30 years ago, so I was still quite young. And what did you notice or what did you learn from his way of becoming an entrepreneur? At the time, what I've learned is to be, basically, very stubborn and never give up, because people cannot see your eyes, but I can see the fire in your eyes. Yes, because there has been very small company, of course, and experience very difficult times. So there are best values, we say, and that's really true. And when this happens, it's really about faith and keeping your values and your faith to make, basically, to survive. It's a question really of surviving and believing in what you're doing. And with this stubbornness, you can really manage to get through that and bring a team together with you. So this was quite a lesson of life, please. And your values, because you mentioned the values of your father and being stubborn, and maybe you've done something similar, what are the values that are really close to your heart that you say, whatever I do, it needs to be related to these values. I think linked to that, I believe in effort, and not transmitting to the young generations that you have to experience difficulties to learn and to be able, then, to survive other type of difficulties. And working and living is not about enjoying of the time. Of course it is, but there are also things that sometimes you do not enjoy, but you need to go through and make an effort to make things happen. And this was really something I got to my family in general, not only my father. And Bernjera, is there a moment in your life that you look back and say, that was actually quite a pivot moment of a big learning that I still take with me in your experience? Sometimes maybe the unenjoyable moments, but that you still are looking back and say, yeah. Yes, it's linked, actually, to the company of my family, the company of my father. There was a moment that has been where everything was on the table, and there was basically really at the age to lose the company. And I've seen my father. really hanging on everybody to defend the company, the projects. And this has really, this stubbornness of believing and making things happen till the last moment was really a very learning for me, a learning experience. And I try to apply this every day now because indeed we are more and more in a complex environment where we have difficulties to get things through. But I'm often thinking, okay, I need to still believe in it, to maybe sleep over it also, because I think also since we accumulate things, sometimes we react, we're overreacting now, it's easy. So by taking a bit of a step back and just one night of sleep sometimes you can just see things from a different perspective. So you mentioned everything was on the table, what happened with everything on the table and how what happened afterwards could it continue with his company or sometimes you just need to get just a little bit of investment to get over difficult financial situation. And then indeed the company could go on, could even grow. My sister is also now in it, it's a time of transition between my father and my sister and the rest of the family. And yes, we are very lucky that now the company is in a good status and we could get forward with certain products that are now helping, but it's anyway for just type of small companies, it's a really struggle, you know, one day it's going well, another time it's more difficult. The period also at the moment, for instance, is not an easy one. So yeah, it's an opportunity to learn all the time and try to survive. And the learnings from leading also a smaller company now you're getting more and more closer, a little bit closer involved. How do you bring those learnings into your current work? I think I've been working for actually the European Space Agency for many years, and I still feel let's say torn apart between a big of course institution and a small company thinking. So I'm working with what is very interesting is that I'm working with different type of actors today, big companies like huge one in space because you need to have quite some shoulders to bring a satellite to life and we're talking sometimes about missions over several hundreds of millions, but I'm also working with very small company because a satellite is not only a big company, it's actually many little pieces that you need to bring together. And there are very specific competencies and equipment that are brought by small companies, and they do not have the same needs at the big one. So it's very important, I think, to be able to take the shoes of the various actors you're dealing with so that you can drive a project other whole, and you understand the diverse needs of everybody and a small company as different needs than a big companies. So that's also the challenge to make sure everybody can work together and adapt to the conditions of each. So Behringer, maybe some people who follow us have seen you as well during a castle experience that we had in September 2024, where you were on stage and also talking about the context that you work in, but also how to be human in that context and also trusting your intuition. How is it possible to work in a technical organization and still work with your intuition? Isn't that really difficult? Of course, the more, let's say, responsibilities you have at a higher level in technical complex projects, like space, but also others, the less, of course, you know the details about it, and the more you have to make decisions based on the limited knowledge. So it's all about asking, let's say, the right people to people you trust about their opinions, about specific topics, and then I believe after a number of years of seeing different projects and different situations, even in technical matters, you're able to feel what is important, what is not, and to feel the direction you should go. I can give you one example, maybe it's quite technical, but go ahead, challenges. A big importance in satellite, actually, it's about engines, because of course your engines allows you to move in space, to get to the right orbit you need to be in, and then to keep that orbit so that you are pointing towards the things you want to look at or the antenna you need to communicate to. Those engines, they are really at the heart of what a mission can do, and so the choice of engines is extremely important. So each time there is a discussion on the what type of engines we should take. Do you invest in doing a new engine or modifying an engine, or do you take something that is already existing? And those types of choices are very important and need to be adapted depending on the overall context. Are you taking already some risks and innovation in other areas of the mission, and then do you want to add a risk in propulsion or not? Or on the contrary, is this engine so important for the next sequences of missions you want to do, maybe in five years time, that it's a right moment to invest on it and show it in flight? So those type of decisions are very important and this, I think, you have so many different parameters for the selection that you need to trust your guts at one point in time, and also maybe consult a few other people that are experienced, that you really trust, to be able to make your final decision and then stick with it, and also take the consequences of it along the whole development of the project, which can mean several years, things can go wrong. You took the decision at that point in time and then, yeah, you will manage it. That's, yeah. If you would translate this example to the small family business, is that possible at all for people in small organizations to understand this level of complexity? I think so, of course, it depends on the products you're doing, but when you're doing an overall product end-to-end, yes, you have, I think, selections to do, of course, at the level of a spacecraft, and at the level when you're not doing the spacecraft your things, but piloting a project from a high level, of course, you have decision to be made that you don't have, let's say, so much visibility. So maybe, yeah, maybe there is a different level of knowledge of the products, and at that point in time, yes, because in a small company, you are doing all the tasks yourself. So you know the inside out of your product, in the institute I'm working on, we do not know the inside out of the product. So we have to make sure we take, let's say, certain decisions have to be made based on less visibility. Yes. What you say is, I don't have that much visibility on data to make my decisions on. Some people say, "Oh, I want to know at 100% that I'm correct, that I make this decision." Of course, that is impossible, but if you would need to make a gut feel around what the percentage is of data that you might have before you even make the decision. So the point is that, by nature, I'm a perfectionist. So I have been evolving along my career about this, and the more I go, the less I need, I think, and I feel confident to take decision without knowing everything, but it's a bit a daily fight because I'm interested also a lot by the technical aspects and by doing things myself. So when I need to a bit, let's slow down myself, not to let the others do because at the end, it's about delegating to others, to the right people who have the time to dig in the details. And that's an experience of every day and a questioning of every day to say, "Okay, depending on the team around me that I'm leading, where do I get more in depth to take my decision? Where do I let basically the decision also be made by others because they are the best place to do it?" So I would say, for me, maybe now I would say, "60, I don't know, 40, I know." But this has again evolved along the time because also I've been at other positions more deeply involved technically than I am today. So before I was taking decision, based on a much broader knowledge, so your experience, the level of seniority, but also your team is really important. And how if you look at the future, because that's also a question, we ask our guests, "How do you look at the future? How do you build the knowledge for the future also in the field that you are working in?" As I told you at the beginning, I came from the moon, if I can say, and where we don't have that many missions, and then I said, "Okay, it's true also, on the moon it takes a lot of time to develop the missions. I want it to go in a more dynamic environment, maybe with also more commercial perspective that are, let's say, easily to draw. I was lucky to be able to position where I'm dealing more now with satellites in a bit of years. So it's something we have more experienced in Europe and around the world. But still, I discovered we are actually at the infancy. So today, to do, for instance, operations between two spacecraft, it has not been matched on, certainly not in Europe. So I'm working on missions now that are launching a satellite that will grab another one, either to extend this life by helping with some manipulations, or that are bringing the satellite down so that it enters into the Earth's atmosphere quicker and free up some space. But this seems to go very close to a spacecraft without damaging it and doing robotic manipulation in space has never been done before. And the more assets we will have in orbit, the more, of course, multiple and complex operations and manipulation of those multiple assets we will want to do. So there is a whole new era in the future that we need to be prepared for and that we need to, as a public institution and a European institution, we have, of course, a role to support our industry to develop in those areas and be competitive. So yes, I see the future bite. There is a lot of potential to develop. And I think we are in a step now where we need to demonstrate in flight what we're able to do so that we are developing the building blocks for the future. So I think it's also good to start small and then to have big ambitions because to start also too big from the start, then it's very difficult to put all those missions in place because of the investment and so on. So the stepwise approach is quite important also for the future. And how do you bring the smaller companies together with the bigger public mindsets? How do you do that? It's one of the challenges. So we are talking in the past years a lot about new space, at least for the space professionals. It's something we hear. So how to develop faster, better, cheaper. And it is there is a challenge between, let's say, the more senior space engineers, scientists, project managers that are used to, let's say, follow maybe a longer cycle of development with, let's say, taking less risk, with respect to those new companies who want to go fast, who are looking for investors and who need to prove to their investors, there will be fast on the market and they will bring back value very quickly. So there is a whole, let's say, adjustments that needs to be done. So yes, there is a lot of work to be done in this area and that's true at every level. It's true within the team we are having within ESA and it's also within the industry. And that's where it gets quite complex to bring everybody together because a space mission is a piece of art. I might say, when we manage to operate it, it's the achievement of a team. It's never, of course, of a single person. And the mission is feasible because the people are looking towards the same objective together and they help each other. Because if you have a problem and we have tons of problems coming in, there is no way, it doesn't bring anything to figure points and then you need people who have the right mindset to do, how can we solve it? And then it's very important to have a complementarity between the young people who want to do things differently and the experience and senior persons who have the experience and the attitude to say, okay, based on my experience, we can cut corners and maybe that's less, for instance. - But you need to have some courage to let go of all of the experience that you have in the past. - Exactly, so I don't, yeah. I think it's also not every experience a person's probably is eager to work in this kind of environment where you're coaching the youngsters and you are also accepting to take more risk. - So we already were diving a little bit into your family and organization and of course into the ASA organization going to space, which I think for a lot of people, including myself, is a new world, you call it new space. Well, the whole space business is quite new to me. So I'm learning a lot, so thank you very much. But there's another area that you also are really passionate about, which has something to do with the city that we are in today, the city of peace in the Hague and about young people. So an art and art. - And that you cannot do it on your own. I have heard many bridges already. - Yes. - Indeed, I discovered a few years ago because of my son actually acquire here in the Hague, which from my point of view is quite peculiar. It's called the Academy of Vocal Art. And they are basically bringing young children together from four years old, if I'm not mistaken, to actually more than 18, so it's a whole career. It's quite a high level of choir and of singing competencies. And I'm recently being more involved in organization of certain events. They are preparing particularly a festival next year to which I invite everybody to attend, which will be in June next year. More information will be communicated this 2027. So June 2027. - June 2027. And this is about bringing choirs from different choirs of top-notch level from over the world. So that they sing together and they basically communicate a piece message by showing the beauty of singing together and of reaching a very aesthetic feeling and emotions together. And yes, I've been quite enthusiastic about it. And the last weeks. - And your son is singing in that particular choir and we talked also about the growth that you see him personally on, but also from a professional perspective of how participating in something like this can help them also prepare for the future. Can you elaborate a little bit more about that? - Yeah, first of all, I'm not a musician myself, but I've done a little bit of music thanks to my family. And first of all, music is another language, in a way. And thanks to this choir, my son is really exposed to a different atmosphere in general that we are in at the moment where everything is accelerated and yes, everything is complex. Here, they take the time to repeat. There is, of course, you are depending from the other on what you're producing and the others are depending on you. So there is also a lot of, it develops a lot of sense of commitment because you commit to come to regular of course trainings and you cannot skip a concert or something because you're part of the group. So there is a lot of a group feeling and also the sense of beauty. There is time for a sense of beauty and sometimes in our daily life, we don't have time for really experiences, it's a sense of beauty, of creating beautiful things together. So I'm really happy, it could have this opportunity and I think it's indeed quite, it's an education for the future, for his personal life, but I think also for his professional life. And there also, just to close the loop, a fort is also very important. A fort? If you had to give yourself an advice from now, when you look back, when you were younger, what kind of advice would you give yourself? I would say, maybe I would have to, I would say it's maybe to change positions more because it took me quite some time to do a radical change of positions because I really had to build progress really the team around me and for me, the team was extremely important in terms of, yes, achieving things together, sharing a mindset, being stimulated, also being disagreeing, but managing the disagreement together. And sometimes very often I change my mind with respect to that. And so I had a very good team and I was very excited about plume exploration to get there. But in fact, I think it's very important to take a step back and to change positions, to be able to basically get other perspectives, ceasing differently and progress. Yes, I would, yeah, from looking at the back, I would have probably say, okay, be trust yourself and change. And sometimes maybe I was a bit resistant to change and maybe even resistant to take the risk to change. That's a double where we, yeah. Because one of the things you also mentioned about risk, yes, that a lot of people, also society, it feels like we are getting more and more risk averse. Now you say this, maybe I should have taken a bit more risk also when I was younger, but of course there are reasons for not doing this. So there are quite a lot of people listening to this podcast by now. So what would be your tip or trick for the listener to take a little bit of more risk? - Yes, in terms of, yes, it's true also, we are talking more and more about risk, how to manage the risk, how to control the risks, it's something that can, and it's even more important when you're dealing with a huge project with many stakeholders and so on, because of the complexity, sometimes the risk seems not to be under control, but we need to be careful, I think, to completely transform this into, as you were mentioning, a risk adverse position and take then go to the other extreme, to want to control everything and actually, at the end, to take no risk. Because then we're just diving and piloting projects by fear. And I think with this, yeah, we're just not going to go, to make things happen and make change, and then this next era of space operations will never happen, at least not in Europe, because we are not alone, of course, there are also actors outside Europe. So I think you were asking for an advice, how to take more risks. I think for me, my advice would go actually to the decision makers and to the high management, because they need to be alongside their teams to make them comfortable to take risks. And to cover them in case issues arise, because if you take risks, sometimes the risk can occur. It doesn't mean that you will need them to face the situation and you need to reassure your teams that you will be there with them to manage the risk that occur at that point in time and the problem. I think sometimes people don't want to take the risk because they do not feel acknowledged or, and that I think, the communication between the various levels is very important, so that you feel that you have identified the risk, other people in the team and also your managers and the high decision makers, they know about it, but they trust you. And if something happens, you will be there with them to manage it, to manage the problem. So it's, again, working on this together and feeling back up and support by your senior leaders. Yes. And this is very important. Maybe to close off a bit in the sense that you talk a lot about trust, and I don't know if you do that purposely or not, but trust is a magic, right? We cannot grab it. It doesn't have a KPI. So how do you know that you have the trust of your leadership to actually take those kind of risks or without them saying it, maybe so explicitly? Or do you ask for it explicitly? Or how do you do that? How do you-- I think it's very progressive when you build this, of course. It's how people react when, particularly, these problems occur, you know, if I just-- maybe one example of one thing-- this approach to risk, we say, is very different in Europe that in the US, for instance. Where US is much more risk-prone. We see this also in investor approaches and things like this. It's true that it culturally driven. I'm convinced we should develop something which is more European model. We cannot copy the US model. We have to develop our own. But this notion of trust for me is really linked to the notion of risk. And your question is, how you build this? It's quite difficult. It's a lot about feelings, again, intuition. And I think it's also about a concrete example where you give a hand to each other. So sometimes you give some things. You give it a try. And then you say, OK, I'm not risking much, but I'm going just to make a sign to you that I will help you on this one. And then the other time, actually, somebody sends you the ball back. And you're like, ah, that's nice. Then we can work together because I see I can share with you my problems. And you can try concretely to help me. And so that's also how the training that-- Yeah, and you take a risk first, maybe, also in building that relationship. And I've also been in a situation that you try to take some risk, and that it completely just went the wrong way. Well, actually, I was thinking of something I forgot in the meantime. But when I steam awards in general, not only in my institute, but it's only about success. It's only teams that are succeeding. But sometimes in space, OK, we cannot also failures. This happens, OK. And the teams have worked like crazy about it. And they still have reached something. Failure is never acknowledged or recognized and awarded for crazy missions. That, OK, there was a risk. Why is the risk taking? Even if there was a failure, not rewarded, yeah. And that, I think, would be a strong boost to show to the teams, OK. It was a super risky mission. But you failed. We know why. But you still-- there is a certain level of recognition. Of course, you need to present it in a certain way. And one example of that is actually the rosetta mission. I don't know probably-- I don't know if you-- it was about a spacecraft landing on a comet. And actually, the landing didn't happen as planned, which is often that way, because landing is very challenging. You can never-- you never know where you go. And the way it has been handled was beautifully human by trying new things that were nobody could imagine. But that's where really our intelligence as human, as engineers, our operators, have really came into play to make this mission a success, even if it wasn't at all like the plants. And what happened? What made it so human? Because, basically, we have been following the spacecraft trying to move it to an area where, finally, they could get some solar light while they were actually against a cliff on this comet. Everybody looked for it. Everybody tried to actionate things on it to move it, which were absolutely not planned for this. And that's-- yeah, that's a beautiful part of it. Yeah, thank you very much. So be human. Celebrate failures. But also successes when they are there. Do it together. Take some risks. Take more risks. Be courageous. Yeah. And sing. Sing. And sing as well. Can you sing? Actually, I'm singing. If I have more time, I would love to sing again. Actually, each time we go to this choir and they do some kind of parents evening, I think we are number who would like to sign up to go for it. So sing more. I think that's a nice ending of this podcast. Yeah. Thank you very much for your time. You're very welcome. Thanks a lot. This was Top Talks. Leadership grows in conversation, not in isolation. Subscribe to Top Talks on Spotify, Apple Podcast, and follow the other perspective on LinkedIn for more on leadership in a complex world. Until next time. [MUSIC PLAYING]