Valérie Guénon grad­u­at­ed from UTC, major­ing in Mechan­i­cal engi­neer­ing (elec­tive spe­cial­ty-Mate­ri­als and tech­no­log­i­cal inno­va­tion) and is Vice- Pres­i­dent Envi­ron­ment Pol­i­cy at Safran Air­craft Engines prod­ucts. She is also a mem­ber of UTC’s Sci­en­tif­ic Advi­so­ry Coun­cil and the God­moth­er of the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny for the class of 2022, which will take place on Novem­ber 26.

How does she feel about the choice of UTC? «I am hon­oured and moved by this choice. It takes me back 40 years. JI see the 18-year-old girl who was admit­ted to this engi­neer­ing school, and I see the peo­ple who entered it five years ago and who are today in a world of upheaval,» she says.

How do you see your role as a men­tor? «Dur­ing the grad­u­a­tion cer­e­mo­ny, we deliv­er their diplo­mas which I hope will be of some use to them in the future and will enable them to cul­ti­vate their tal­ents to the full», she assures.

All the more so since «in recent years we have wit­nessed fun­da­men­tal upheavals that are rev­o­lu­tion­is­ing the way we look at the world, shak­ing up our base val­ues and ques­tion­ing the way our com­pa­nies and soci­eties func­tion», adds Valérie Guénon.

Among these upheavals? «There is, among oth­ers, the dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion, Soci­etal upheaval, the cli­mate change emer­gency, etc.,» she says.

The dig­i­tal rev­o­lu­tion? «It has pro­vid­ed extra­or­di­nary tools and pos­si­bil­i­ties for com­mu­ni­ca­tion, infor­ma­tion, design, man­u­fac­tur­ing… that did not exist when you were born. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, these tools also encour­age the prop­a­ga­tion of false truths, the ques­tion­ing of sci­en­tif­i­cal­ly estab­lished facts, and sets of behav­iour that are not always exem­plary. This forces us to be vig­i­lant,» she says.

Soci­etal upheaval? «One of the great advances in the world of work has been the recog­ni­tion of dis­crim­i­na­tion mech­a­nisms — of all kinds -, the iden­ti­fi­ca­tion of phe­nom­e­na such as harass­ment or suf­fer­ing at work, and their con­sid­er­a­tion in cor­po­rate func­tion­ing. These phe­nom­e­na have cer­tain­ly not dis­ap­peared, but they are named, iden­ti­fied and fought. It is up to you to devel­op a cul­ture of inclu­sion and benev­o­lence, which is essen­tial for the per­for­mance of com­pa­nies and, above all, for an accept­able func­tion­ing of Soci­ety,» she stresses.

The cli­mate change emer­gency? «We are sure that we must take up the chal­lenge of the cli­mate change threat with its pre­dictable geopo­lit­i­cal, eco­nom­ic, social and human reper­cus­sions”, she urges.

And Valérie Guénon con­cludes: «Be open to cul­tures oth­er than your own, be inter­est­ed in com­mu­ni­ca­tion, eco­nom­ics, soci­ol­o­gy, arts, pol­i­tics, lan­guages… what­ev­er you want, as long as it inter­ests you. Do not for­get ecol­o­gy, which has become a require­ment that cuts across all dis­ci­plines. It is not a ques­tion of mas­ter­ing every­thing — that is illu­so­ry and use­less — but of dig­ging a few more fur­rows of knowl­edge, which will per­haps give rise to more and bet­ter inno­v­a­tive solu­tions. Cul­ti­vate all your talents!”»