Paul Eremenko leaves Airbus after just 18 months as Technical Officer

Having previously headed Airbus innovations’ sector in San Jose, California and after just 18 months in his new role as Technical Officer, Paul Eremenko has left the company and is understood to have returned to America to join the industrial group UTC.
It is understood Eremenko’s tenure at Airbus was turbulent as he looked to introduce ideas from a more dynamic environment in Silicon Valley to the more slow-moving environment of the aerospace industry. Sources close to Airbus have indicated that Eremenko’s fast-paced strategies based on tech companies’ approaches to innovation were met with heavy resistance in the ultra-safety conscious aviation environment, where products can take decades to make it into the air. Eremenko had previously worked at Google, Motorola and the Pentagon’s research agency DARPA, and at the time of his appointment was seen as a key appointment to the French company, and early on he set about bringing the dominant airliners’ business together with the smaller defense and electronics operations under one roof. Prior to his departure, Eremenko was working on new technologies such as pilotless personal aircraft, and electric-powered airliners.