After working as a project engineer for the French nuclear industry for 10 years, I moved to Germany and discovered FAIR data, open science and service federation. As project manager of the ExPaNDS project, I helped steer foundational work towards making data and software FAIR for ten national photon and neutron research infrastructures in Europe. Since then, I have been involved in EU and German projects around the EOSC, FAIR data and HIFIS, oscillating between project management, communication and coordination. With the upcoming upgrade of our PETRA III synchrotron, DESY has an exciting challenge ahead: to build a FAIR-by-design environment for PETRA IV. I think being involved in wider initiatives is fundamental to our ability to maintain the tempo.