Women senior executives in defence industries are rare, but even more exceptional in missiles, generally seen as “toys for boys.” But there are a few exceptions and Eva, with her passion for technology and her mathematical brain, is one of them.

You'd never guess listening to the Managing Director of Eurosam* that she was anything but Italian with her lovely sing-songy accent when she speaks English. But Eva was born in Germany and lived in her native country until she was 22.

She specialised in studying physics and mathematics at high school, then continued her studies at the Siemens engineering school in Munich before going straight into a job with Siemens.

“I had a nice apartment, supplied by Siemens, and was earning good money but felt I was too young to have such a steady life and I was really itching to learn about other cultures and see other places.” So, much to her parents annoyance, she upped sticks and went to Rome to study mathematics at La Sapienza University, although she didn't speak any Italian at all. “I made a mélange between the French and Latin I'd learnt at school and came out with Italian,” she laughs. But she concedes that the first year was very difficult and that she'd been “not really good” at the first oral examinations. “The examiner told me I had to come back and be more precise in my explanations,” she says. “It took me 18 months to master the language and 10 years to master the culture,” this easygoing, elegant woman grins.

When she graduated in 1988 Eva received a number of job offers. “In those days you'd get a job offer via telegramme and I received a lot of those. But I was waiting for one from Selenia. So, I phoned Selenia Rome and I explained that I really wanted to go into this technical business. And then I got their offer!”

She accepted “even though they were neither offering me an apartment, like some of the others were, nor such a good salary, but I made the trade-off because my objective was to work closely with technology. Numbers have always been my passion,” she smiles, admitting to having a Sudoku game next to her computer! 

And her choice was wise because she's been with the company ever since** and was appointed Managing Director of Eurosam in September 2018. It's a neat professional circle since today she’s the head of the same programme and products she contributed to design when she started at Selenia! Eva stresses that she “really appreciates working for a 100 % international company, at the head of a well integrated international team.”

So what was it about missiles that she found so fascinating, I ask her. She explains that it was a sector she was familiar with because her mother's career had been in the defence industry although she doesn't think that was very influential. “For me it was more technology, technology! It was the really high level of technology that interested me and I was sure that in a defence company I would always have the opportunity to work on the latest technologies. I entered Selenia to work on this huge new programme to develop and produce the Aster medium- and long-range naval and ground based air-defence missile systems called FSAF (Famille Sol-Air Future - [Future Surface Air Family]).”

She began her career as a software engineer in Selenia's technical directorate gaining experience in air defence systems design and in command and control software architectures.

When she returned from maternity leave after the birth of her first son in 1990 she got a lead position in the software team “and when I returned to work after my second son's birth in 1996 I was able to grow my responsibility further,” she explains. That lead to dealing with the navy and army customers and travelling to meetings. But she had a strict routine to balance her family and professional lives. “I always made sure I could take my sons to school in the morning after a good German breakfast. Then, every afternoon a babysitter would pick the boys up from school and stay until we got home for our late Italian dinner between 8 and 9 p.m. And then we would play board games, something we still like to do now,” she remarks. And if both she and her Italian husband had to be away overnight, then another babysitter would come and stay the night.

“But I also have to thank my very modern husband because he likes to cook, and I don't, and he's been very, very tolerant with me,” she laughs.

Eva says her career has been “very quiet” from a gender discrimination point of view even though there were only a few female engineers in Selenia when she joined “this really male company... at that time!” She said both her job interviews centred on her technical expertise and there were never questions about potential career interruptions due to maternity leave, for example, “even though I was worried that might come up.” Throughout her career she has never felt discriminated against for being a woman.

Today she says the trend to greater male/female equality is “very positive” and she's pleased that not only are there several women executives (including the Technical department director in Eurosam) but that diversity as a whole is being promoted both in MBDA and Eurosam. 

*a 50/50 joint venture between France and Italy established in 1989 by what today is MBDA Italia, MBDA France – part of MBDA Missile Systems – and Thales.

** Selenia became Alenia/Finmeccanica whose missiles division formed MBDA Missile Systems together with BAe Systems and Airbus