Andrea Vena is the Chief Climate and Sustainability Officer of the European Space Agency – ESA. He has over than thirty years of experience in the space sector both in industrial and institutional areas. He’s married with three children.
Graduated in Electronic Engineering, with a Master in Telecommunication Systems, he started his career in Italy as system engineer in Alenia Spazio, the space branch of Finmeccanica (today Leonardo), where he contributed to large space projects as the ESA Artemis Data Relay Satellite, and the ESA-NASA Cassini-Huygens mission, and then covered different managerial positions.
In 2000, Andrea started his career at ESA by joining the Strategy Directorate. In 2006 he was appointed head of the Corporate Strategic Planning office, in charge of the Agency’s strategic planning process, including the elaboration of the 10-year ESA Long-Term Plan and the management of Agency-level strategic risks.
In 2016, he was appointed head of the Corporate Development Office, in charge of establishing a corporate strategy for the development of the organization. Among his duties, Andrea was responsible for elaborating and coordinating the implementation of the ESA Strategic Plan including actions and activities needed to reach ESA development strategic objectives. He was in charge, among others, to define and deploy a knowledge management system across the organization as well as to elaborate a corporate social responsibility policy and define actions needed to implement it at ESA.
On June 1st, 2021, Andrea has been appointed Chief Climate and Sustainability Officer to ensure that ESA and its programmes contribute to the Paris Agreements on Climate Change and the European Green Deal. He’s in charge of elaborating and implementing an ESA Green Agenda, which identifies actions and activities needed for the Agency to achieve the GHG reduction Science-Based targets in line with the Paris Agreements. These include the assessment of the emissions linked to the design, development, deployment, and life operations of a space mission as well as of those linked to diverse operational activities of the organization, as data processing, satellite, and payload operations, but also office activities, mission travels and commuting.