Isabelle Maës earned a degree in Management from HEC Brussels and a Master in Business Administration from INSEAD.
She first worked in business development and communication for an American multinational. Her various assignments led her to live in several European countries.
Isabelle Maës joined the European Commission in 2009. She initially managed communication activities for the European satellite navigation programmes Galileo and EGNOS. She then moved on to the area of transport fuels and urban mobility, where she managed the CIVITAS programme and the European Alternative Fuels Observatory. She continued in transport as advisor to the European Coordinator for the Atlantic Corridor of the Trans-European Transport Network.
She is now back in the space sector, as Sherpa for space research at DG DEFIS.