José-Luis de Miguel Cortes was named Head of Europe at Airbus Defence and Space in March 2024, based in Madrid. As responsible for the Europe Region he directs the regional network in charge of the business development activities for more than 50 countries, including also the activities related to the joint European and NATO initiatives.
Before that, he was responsible for Product Marketing at Airbus Defence and Space, focusing on Military Air Systems and Space Systems activities, leading the related efforts on Technical Sales, Product Promotion and Product Policy.
Previously he had been Head of Process Integration for Airbus Defence & Space based in Ottobrunn (Germany), being responsible for the integration and improvement of the divisional activities through the deployment of global processes and lean practices.
Before that, José-Luis had been responsible for Software Development and Systems Engineering at Cassidian based in Getafe (Spain) taking care of development activities of all Air Systems related projects, including EF Typhoon Enhancements, Tactical UAS, HALE/MALE UAS and FCAS.
José-Luis was previously the Head of Strategy of the Cassidian Air Systems Business Unit based in Manching (Germany) and prior to this, he was part of the EADS Sales & Marketing team for Eurofighter Typhoon (Ottobrunn, Germany).
José-Luis joined EADS (-CASA) in Spain in 2000. He served in various engineering positions during his early career years, mainly related to Aircraft Preliminary Design and Flight Control Systems Design & Test.
José-Luis earned a Masters degree in Aeronautical Engineering at the Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (including a 1 year exchange at Stuttgart University), with the focus on Aircraft Design, Propulsion and Missiles. During his university years he also collaborated with The von Karman Institute for Fluid Dynamics (Brussels, Belgium) in gas turbine related research activities.