His military service with the French Navy gave him a taste for travel. Having secured a position as an nternal auditor for the Franco-British joint venture GEC Alstom, Christophe travelled to India to set up a cost price system at three of the group's plants in Calcutta.

He went on to work for Alcatel Contracting, in Colombia, where he was Chief Financial Officer for three years before holding similar positions for one year in Brazil, again for Alcatel Contracting, as part of the Alcatel Telecomunicaçoes SA structure. He joined the space industry in 1999 when he was appointed Chief Financial Officer for Eurasiasat SAM, a Monaco-based startup controlled by Türk Telekom and Alacatel Space, whose goal was to acquire and operate a geostationary telecommunications satellite, for which he oversaw the financing.

"In 2005, at the request of the Alcatel Space representative on the Eurasiasat Board of Directors, I moved to Toulouse and joined the service company created by Alcatel Space as part of the brand new Space Alliance championed by Alcatel (now Thales) and Finmeccanica (now Leonardo), and which is now called Telespazio France SAS, as Chief Financial Officer."