“Being there from the beginning to set things up, and hopefully set them up right, is a once in a career opportunity,” Brooke said. “As the founders of Edgewing we are living our values and leaving a mark that matters.”
Edgewing is the defence industry joint venture accountable for the design and development of the GCAP (Global Combat Air Programme) aircraft, the next-generation combat jet.
Edgewing was created by BAE Systems (UK), Leonardo, (Italy) and Japan Aircraft Industrial Enhancement Co. Ltd (JAIEC).
Brooke joined Edgewing at its inception and shares what it takes to start a company from scratch to fully operational.
Define the mission, then build the foundations
Edgewing is only a few months old. Established in June 2025, what started with a vision and a common purpose quickly needed a clear operational framework: policies, processes, enabling systems and people.
A few months in, getting Edgewing up to speed is all about integration, and how to streamline the work across engineering, digital, security, infrastructure and commercial. It’s about bringing work started in three nations together into a single coherent programme, establishing the systems and processes to produce a single integrated set of schedules and budgets, risks, opportunities and dependencies. A single source of truth to the programme to enable effective and rapid decision making across the GCAP enterprise.
Edgewing is expected to deliver the GCAP aircraft in an extremely ambitious timeframe.
To do so, the company needs to take a next generation approach to programme management, informed by lessons learned from previous defence collaboration projects but pushing the boundaries and trying new technologies – daring to go beyond.
Brooke currently leads the programme management office teams. The teams cover traditional programme functions while managing the set-up of Edgewing HQ and its sites as well as the bid for the first international contract.
Dashboards and cultures
But more than systems and processes, building Edgewing is about putting together a high performing team, bringing its best as one to drive what’s next. In an environment where everyone is new, Edgewing’s multinational character is both a strength and a management challenge.
“Prior to joining Edgewing, I had never worked closely with Japanese or Italian colleagues before,” Brooke admits. “The opportunity to do that and learn more about how different nations work is fantastic.”
But beyond nationalities, she stresses the importance of understanding the individual colleagues in your team and around you. Some are comfortable with ambiguity and some need more structure. That’s true wherever people come from: “In start-up mode, you need the kind of people who are comfortable with ambiguity and uncertainty… you need the kind of people who can go, ‘Okay, I don’t really know what the answer is, but why don’t we start doing this and we’ll work out and see how we go.’”
Learning from each other while building shared norms is what will help Edgewing thrive.
One thing that surprised her, is how cohesive everyone at Edgewing has been. “What took me by surprise? How well everyone’s working together. Because we put a group of people who had never spoken to each other, in a building under pressure with huge amounts of work to do, and said, off you go. We have been living our value of setting trust at the heart, seeking to understand the different perspectives we bring on our unique mission” She said.
But if she has one take away lesson it’s this: “Write it down and draw pictures. There have been lots of conversations and ideas about how Edgewing was meant to operate” she said, but if it’s not captured somewhere it gets lost as people move from project to project. I am also learning the value of pictures – they say a picture paints a thousand words and that’s especially true when those words are in three languages.”
25 Years in Defence
With a PHD in Biophysics, experience as a civil servant and more than 25 years working in defence, Brooke is not new to challenges. With broad experience across development programmes, transformation and bids, the possibility of starting a business and a programme from scratch is what got her hooked in on the idea of joining GCAP and the company in charge of delivering it, Edgewing.
As the Chief Programme Management Officer, Brooke is turning Edgewing’s strategy into coordinated action: establishing governance and tools, integrating diverse delivery streams, managing the cost/scope/schedule triangle, and shaping the people and culture needed to deliver complex projects.
Brooke likens the programme to “Driving the car around the race track whilst we're changing the tyre, and we're actually laying the track and building the pit lane at the same time” she said. “It's been like heading into the New World. There isn't a map, but it’s a big and important adventure.”