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HI THERE! I’M FABIO PINNA

Share my passion

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ABOUT

Personal Profile

I faced any new challenge encountered in my life with passion and a desire to build something durable. Each of them has been an incredible opportunity to learn, share and grow.
Now, this journey is never going to be over and every day a new discovery is hiding somewhere.
The drive and enthusiasm I put in all my endeavors allowed me to develop an amazing network both personal and professional.
If you feel like you want to reach out just keep reading, ask or get in touch.

Learn More

MY EXPERIENCE

Roles & Responsibilities

April 2024 - Current

HEAD of INNOVATION & TECHNOLOGY GOVERNANCE, TELESPAZIO Belgium

Enhancing and managing company innovation and technology portfolio while ensuring revenues and long-term profitability of the innovation projects. Creation of technology roadmap to support company development in agreement with corporate strategic directions. *

Support finance department by drafting financial updates of relevant innovation activities and projects. Monitoring budget and effort in technology intensive activities. Development and maintenance of processes related to technology and innovation projects.

In charge of management interface between technology, project customers and all internal stakeholders.

July 2022 - April 2024

TECHNICAL PROJECT MANAGER, SEPTENTRIO

In charge of hardware and software projects throughout their life cycle, starting from the initial scope definition until delivery.
Handling milestones, allocate resources and define project WBS. Aligning schedules and facilitate the interaction among different stakeholders such as business partners, consultants and internal departments.
Budget and schedules preparation for each project. Collaboration with product managers and technical leaders to process market requirements and transform them into engineering requirements.
Producing and presenting periodic status reports during the whole project life cycle.

November 2012 - June 2022

SENIOR RESEARCH ENGINEER, VON KARMAN INSTITUTE

eading scientific and industrial projects both technically and as project manager. I built and managed a development group focused on the numerical prediction of stability and transition. I created the VESTA toolkit for boundary-layer stability and published my research in scientific journals. I routinely presented my work at international conferences. I have been member of the NATO STO Task group.  I dealt with the preparation of proposals with international consortia such as H2020, ITN or ESA projects.
In charge for the creation of schedule, WBS of industrial project and grant proposal.
I have been an invited speaker to several seminars on high-speed flow or boundary-layer transition. My role included also lecturing diverse classes of students and supervising undergrads and PhDs students
I have been conferences organizer and Director of several VKI Lecture Series.
I have been a proposal evaluator for institutional players at European (ERC grants) and national level.

Through my expertise in hypersonic flow simulations and laminar-to-turbulence transition I developed fluid dynamics software and algorithms, with a focus on numerical simulation (computational fluid dynamics). I worked on development of physical modelling for space applications. 

November 2011 - October 2012

RESEARCH ENGINEER, VON KARMAN INSTITUTE

In charge of scientific and industrial projects as researcher.
Expert in hypersonic flow simulations and laminar-to-turbulence transition.
I built and managed a development group focused the numerical prediction of stability and transition. Preparing proposals with international consortia for European grants and ESA projects (as GSTP). Presenting research work at world class conferences such as Eucass and AIAA. Giving lectures
Publish my research in scientific journals. Technical and algorithmic development in fluid dynamics (heat transfer, hypersonics, subsonic flows, industrial flows, system flows).

April 2006 - September 2006

THERMAL PROTECTION ENGINEER, AVIO

Design and update of thermal protection for ESA launcher Ariane 5 and ARTA program.

Detailed design of Vega (Advanced Generation European Launcher) and interface with production activities. Simulation and coordination of tensile strength tests for internal thermal protections.
Management of outsourced activities.

EDUCATION

My Studies

September 2019 - June 2021

E-MBA
SOLVAY BRUSSELS SCHOOL

The executive MBA trained me in the different aspect of management from project to financial analysis. A good balance between theoretical and practical aspect has been achieved by means of several project in collaboration with Belgian companies (as Cosucra and Colruyt). My final work focused on building a start-up.

November 2007 - November 2011

PHD IN AEROSPACE TECHNOLOGY
UNIVERSITY OF ROME, "LA SAPIENZA"
VON KARMAN INSTITUTE

PhD in laminar-to-turbulent transition. During this work I created the VESTA toolkit (VKI extensible stability and transition analysis toolkit) which is capable to simulate boundary layer stability at different regimes.

June 2007

DIPLOMA COURSE
VON KARMAN INSTITUTE FOR FLUID DYNAMICS

Graduated with honors with a thesis on "Numerical Simulation of Thermal Non Equilibrium Effects in Hypersonic Flows".

Research training in fluid dynamics with a focus on numerical methods (using the Coolfluid platform)

December 2005

MASTER IN AEROSPACE ENGINEERING
UNIVERSITY OF ROME, "LA SAPIENZA"

Graduated with 110/110 (major in Aerodynamics) with a thesis on "Multi-disciplinary local and global optimization of aerospace systems" (Ottimizzazione Multidisciplinare Locale e Globale di Sistemi Aerospaziali") in collaboration with ESA-ACT. Holder of a fellowship at Dpt. of structural mechanics for two years.

MY SKILL SET

What I Do

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PHYSICAL MODELING

I like to understand the inner mechanism governing a phenomenon, decomposing them in little bits and build a model that can drive my decision process

DECISION MAKING

Analyzing carefully our environment and the information around us, I learnt how to ask myself the right questions.

When your question is right, then finding the answer and making your decision is only a matter of time

CREATIVITY

I like to think outside the box. Very often there is a reason why things are done in a certain way but sometimes it is just a habit.  To get new results you need to stop for a moment and approach things creatively

Image by SpaceX

“Never was anything great achieved without danger.”

Niccolò Machiavelli

LET’S CONNECT

If you want to know more about me or you would like to contact me for a professional consultancy I’d love to hear from you.
Just fill in the form and I would be back to you as quickly as I can.

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