Nathalie Guichard

Nathalie Guichard has been Director for Research, Technology and Innovation (RTI) at the European Defence Agency (EDA) sinse May 2026. She is a Brigadier General and was previously the managing director of L’Atelier Industriel de l’Aéronautique de Clermont-Ferrand (AIA CF), a French state-owned military aircraft maintenance facility .
Guichard is a military engineer who graduated from France's L'École polytechnique and the Institut Supérieur de l'Aéronautique et de l'Espace (ISAE-Supaéro). She also holds a master’s degree in public management. She started her career in 1990 as a project manager for flying test bench modification. Two years later, she became head of the equipment maintenance department. After transferring to the aeronautical programs office of Délégation générale pour l’armement (DGA), France’s procurement agency, in 1998, Guichard then became the Rafale manufacturing and support manager at the French Ministry of Defence.
In 2001, Guichard left the ministry and became the information technology adviser of Auvergne regional prefect, to develop mobile phone and wide bandwidth networks, among other projects. She also liaised with the European Regional Development Fund. She joined Clermont Ferrand community of cities to develop start-ups as well as technology transfer from university research centres to local small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). In 2016, she returned to the military sphere, first as deputy managing director and then chief operating officer of AIA CF, before becoming managing director in 2020.