HOW YOU SWAN: Christelle’s Story

Release your inspiration...

How You SWAN has already highlighted the profiles of multiple women in the space industry. As we continue to uplift female voices in this sector, we are also launching a deeper-dive format several times a year: How You SWAN: Her Story – a special edition dedicated to exploring the personal journeys behind the careers. Through this format, we aim to further develop the core questions of How You SWAN and spotlight the lived experiences of our peers at SWAN.

Our first guest is Christelle Astorg-Lepine, whom many of you may know as one of SWAN’s founder and current president, amongst many other decisive roles such as being the Space Counselor to the French Embassy in the UAE, the French Space Agency (CNES) representative in the Middle East, and the Vice President of Cosmos for Humanity.

🌟 Christelle’s Elevator Pitch: When did she use it in her career? How did it evolve over the course of her journey?

There are several types of elevator pitches: those that present a product, an idea, or a solution, and those that highlight the speaker themselves. At the beginning of my career, I focused on the former. Then, I realized that the two are inseparable. Beyond the product pitch, it is the credibility and legitimacy of the person delivering the message that truly make the difference.

Naively, after many years of technical experience in launcher engineering and strategy, I assumed that my legitimacy spoke for itself. I quickly understood that it did not: you first have to assert who you are and what you have accomplished before sharing new ideas—sometimes disruptive ones. That’s when I learned to use “I.”

I don’t know whether this is typically feminine, but until then I had expressed myself only through “we,” referring to the team projects I had led. I realized that this “we” diluted the message and weakened my personal positioning…

💡 One piece of advice you’d give to a fellow colleague: When did you use it yourself?

Halfway through my career, around the age of 35 - 40, I became aware that my ideas – my points of view or strategic opinions – were not being heard, despite more than 15 years of experience in the field. I then began to question the way I was communicating my messages: what if the problem didn’t lie with those around me, but with how I was expressing myself or adapting to my audience?

That’s when I discovered a key method: “self-marketing.” I worked on my own personal marketing, clearly identifying what I wanted to convey and the most appropriate approaches to deliver my messages with impact.

🚀 Your story as a woman in a male-dominated field: your fears and failures? How did you overcome them? What did you learn from them?

I believe the greatest difficulty remains self-confidence. When I was younger, during my studies and at the start of my career, I had it in abundance. But it gradually faded when I was made to understand that my ideas—logical, simple, obvious in my eyes—were not “in line” or politically correct. I learnt to stay silent, to no longer openly express my convictions. Without realizing it, this deeply weakened me: I was no longer aligned with myself.

I then had to learn to listen to myself again, to convince myself that I was right more often than I thought. There is no need to convince everyone. The essential thing is to find your mission: work you will be proud of, that you will defend with passion, and an environment where you will finally dare to express your ideas without shame.

What is one thing that everyone who reads this article should know?

To remain aligned with yourself, whatever the environment or your personal and professional life choices. In my view, that is the best advice to give: the kind that allows you to live with peace of mind, even if it is not the easiest path.

Christelle’s story is a reminder that growth is not always a question of climbing higher, but a question of returning to oneself. Her journey shows us that, beyond expertise, careers are built on courage: the courage to own your voice, to say “I” rather than hiding behind “we”, and to stand by your convictions. This is precisely why SWAN strives to foster environments where women in space can speak and lead without foregoing who they are. When one woman like Christelle dares to assert her legitimacy, she makes space for many others to do the same.

- The SWAN Team