Balkiz Sarihan leads one of the most exciting projects shaping the future, the development of urban air mobility at Airbus, where she heads strategy, partnerships, and innovation in the field
of sustainable urban transport. As the head of Airbus Advanced Air Mobility, Balkiz blends the entrepreneurial spirit of a startup with the strength of a global corporation, building a bridge between today and the future of flight.
Her career, spanning more than two decades in innovation, technology, and business transformation, illustrates how large organizations can retain the agility and speed typical of startups without losing the stability and accountability that define the corporate world. Before joining Airbus in 2015, she was responsible for business development and commercial activities at the Canadian company Vector Aerospace. At Airbus, she led numerous global programs in innovation, digitalization, and sustainability before taking over leadership of the Urban & Advanced Air Mobility division one of the key pillars of Airbus’s future mobility vision.
Under her leadership, Airbus Advanced Air Mobility has become a case study in how innovation culture is built from within, through interdisciplinary teams, open collaboration with startup ecosystems, and a clear mission: to shape the sustainable future of mobility.
Balkiz Sarihan heads Airbus’s Urban & Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) program, one of the clearest manifestations of a “startup within a corporation.” Its mission: to develop markets, industry standards, and sustainable ecosystems that will enable the next generation of advanced air mobility solutions. Airbus is actively shaping the future of this sector through its CityAirbus NextGen project and strategic investments in key technologies that support the company’s decarbonization roadmap.
Balkiz believes that innovation doesn’t emerge from structure it grows from culture.
At Airbus, inclusion, diversity, and the exchange of ideas among people from different disciplines are not just values, they are the fuel of creativity and the engine of new market creation. It is precisely this blend of corporate responsibility and startup mentality that makes Airbus one of the most compelling examples of how large systems can evolve into agile innovation organisms.
Airbus proves that size doesn’t have to be an obstacle to innovation. On the contrary — when a startup mindset and operational model are embedded within a corporation, big ideas grow faster and stronger, backed by the resources and credibility of a global leader.
Innovation is not a department — it’s a mindset. Balkiz reveals how leaders can reawaken the creative spirit within large systems, fostering collaboration, experimentation, and the courage to take risks and learn from them.
At Airbus, innovation and sustainability are inseparable. From the development of electric aircraft to decarbonization and circular economy initiatives — every decision is filtered through ESG principles. Sustainability is not a goal; it’s a standard.
When people from different cultures, disciplines, and perspectives work together, innovation doesn’t just happen — it accelerates. Balkiz shows how inclusivity is not only a moral imperative but also a strategic one for innovation leaders.
At the Forum, Balkiz Sarihan will reveal how Airbus develops innovation from within, merging the strength of a global corporation with the speed and flexibility of a startup.
She will speak about the transformation of corporate culture, the processes that enable new ideas to be born and tested inside a large organization, and the mechanisms that turn experimentation into sustainable business models.
Participants will learn:
At Balkan Business Forum 2026, Balkiz Sarihan will show how vision becomes movement and why it’s time for large organizations to relearn how to think like pioneers.
The future belongs to organizations capable of combining the power of scale with the agility of startups. Airbus has set a remarkable precedent in that transformation, redefining itself not as an industrial giant protecting its legacy, but as an organization constantly relearning how to create.
Airbus aims to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, in alignment with the global climate agenda. Its strategy encompasses the development of new aircraft technologies, adoption
of Sustainable Aviation Fuels (SAF), and enhancement of efficiency through advances in aerodynamics and modern materials.
his is not a story about how a corporation becomes a startup. It’s a story about how a corporation stays large but thinks like someone just beginning to change the world. When a corporation thinks like a startup, innovation stops being an initiative and it becomes identity.
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