Dr. Laurent Rouaud is an Assistant Professor at Purdue Polytechnic School of Aviation and Transportation Technology. His research focuses on accelerating hybrid-electric for commercial aviation.

In addition to his current position at Purdue, Laurent Rouaud is the Principal at AVWORKS PARTNERS. Before starting AVWORKS PARTNERS with his co-founder, Laurent was the Chief Marketing Officer for all the businesses and activities of GE Aviation, a world-leading Aviation company. Prior to GE, Laurent worked in a similar capacity at Airbus.  Laurent was instrumental in the growth of GE Aviation and Airbus in launching and establishing commercial success for aircraft, engines, components and services products as well as setting up successful partnerships and ventures.  He covered a wide range of markets that included commercial and military jet engines and components as well as integrated digital, avionics, electric power, digital and mechanical systems for aircraft and the global service network to support these offerings. Laurent has established AVWORKS PARTNERS has a trusted advisor and counselor to influential Aerospace and Defense businesses including financial institutions.

As Chief Marketing Officer of GE Aviation, Laurent led GE Aviation’s growth, strategy, pricing and marketing activities. This includes developing an integrated strategy for the business, developing business adjacencies and new commercial products, providing an enterprise view of all products and services offered to customers, leading the commercial pricing analytics and marketing all GE Aviation products and services to global customers for the Commercial Engines, Military, After market and MRO, VTOL and air mobility, Avionics and Power Systems, Business and General Aviation, and Digital solutions businesses as well as the Ecomagination business platform dedicated to environmental innovation. His responsibilities led him to develop deep relationships with a very extensive number of executives at airlines, lessors, MROs, OEMs of aircraft and components as well as financiers, investors, analysts, start-up companies and other industry players.  ​

Prior to joining GE, Laurent was senior vice president of Market and Product Strategy at Airbus, covering all products and services. As the head of market and product strategy at Airbus, Laurent launched a number of aircraft products and services including the A350 and A320neo. Prior to his Product Development responsibilities, Laurent held executive positions in Marketing, Sales, Business Development, Pricing, Investor relations and environmental affairs.

Laurent started his career in 1987 at McDonnell Douglas in Long Beach, California, as a senior airline market analyst in the Strategic Planning and Forecasting Department of Douglas Aircraft. He joined Airbus in Toulouse in 1991 as manager of Marketing in the Market Development Department and Airline Marketing. In 1996, he moved to Airbus of North America to lead Business Development and investors relations. ​

Laurent earned a master’s degree in engineering from the Institut Polytechnique des Sciences Avancées, a master’s degree and a PhD in Economics with honors, specialized in Industrial Organization, from the Toulouse School of Economics. Laurent graduated from the French Military Engineering Corps as an Officer and studied at the Superior War School. He is also a Commercial and Instrument rated pilot.

In addition to his position at Purdue, Laurent also teaches Microeconomics, Strategy, and Game theory to MBA students at the Linder College of Business of the University of Cincinnati.