At Airbus, they are conscious that the corporate DNA is heavily rooted in engineering rigour, where imperfection and uncertainty lead to catastrophe.Product failure is unacceptable and inexcusable in their industry. Their products, by their very nature, are complex, often require colossal investment, have a lifecycle spanning decades and operate in a heavily regulated industry. As an organization, they are risk-averse. Their own complexity slows them down. Given this context, how is Christian leading Airbus' efforts to building new ventures from the ground up? What is working (so far), what are lessons learned - and will this eventually succeed?

Christian Lindener is Head of Airbus BizLab, an aerospace accelerator. Prior to joining Airbus, Lindener worked as Managing Director for Wayra Germany, a technology innovation hub. In this role, he oversaw the strategic direction of the organisation, as well as, the selection of startups and young technology corporations for integration into the Telefonicà investment portfolio. As an independent tech consultant, he has created and advised more than 20 incubator and accelerator programs. As Director of TechFounders, a high-tech hardware accelerator based in Munich, he was responsible for the development of more than 50 high-tech startups. Lindener has co-founded several companies, one of which--a virtual reality startup—was sold to booking.com in 2014. Most recently, he co-launched D3 Technologies AG, an open digital operations platform for the urban air mobility market. Christian was born in Brazil--and grew up in Mexico. He studied international business administration and economics at the Leopold-Franzens-University in Innsbruck, the University of New Orleans and the University of Barcelona.