December 12, 2019
Tom Cyr, Director, Business Development, JSSI
How long have you been at your current organization?
It will be twelve years in February.
What are your responsibilities within your organization?
Sales. I have a nine-state area in the Upper Midwest.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
As is typical for any business development type; prospecting, pursuit and maintenance of current client relationships. Lot’s of travel.
November 15, 2019
Tobias Kleff, former Jetcraft Sales Director
Location: Las Vegas, NV, US
How long have you been at Jetcraft?
I have been with the company since mid July 2019.
What are your responsibilities within the global Jetcraft team?
I am responsible for the Pacific Northwest U.S. (Northern CA, OR, WA, MT, ID, WY, AK) and British Columbia, focusing on Sales, Acquisitions, and Consulting with customers in that region.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
My day starts by checking my phone for emails and calls that came in overnight.
After the morning rush I usually find some time to have breakfast around 9:30 and go over my schedule for the day.
Within a typical week I try to balance my time amongst emails, phone calls and in person meetings. Traveling and meeting with prospects, existing clients and industry colleagues is another important part of my typical day to day. Also, daily updates with my Sales Engineer and counterpart Sales Directors throughout our 20+ offices worldwide help me stay well informed.
October 16, 2019
Chris Hughes, Relationship Director Aviation, Lombard part of the Royal Bank of Scotland Group Plc
How long have you been at your current organization?
I have been with Lombard since March 2010 having previously worked in the Structured Asset Finance team at BNP Paribas Fortis in the UK, and before that at HSBC bank plc. I initially joined Lombard to work in the Corporate Asset Finance team but when an opportunity came up six years ago to get back into Aviation I jumped at the chance. The past six years have flown by …pardon the pun.
What are your responsibilities within your organization?
As a Director within our Aviation finance team I am involved to a degree in all aspects of the client life cycle. My primary role is deal origination, negotiation and execution but I also get involved in credit management, and assessing policy and risk appetite for the aviation business in general. A key component of the role is relationship management of both our internal and external stakeholders as well as our growing customer base.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
I like to start the day with an early Crossfit fix, an early workout always sets me up for the day ahead. First thing I do when I get into the office is to check my emails and action anything that may have come in overnight. From there it’s a real mix of client meetings, internal stakeholder sessions, client calls and external stakeholder meetings together with taking time to catch up with the team on workloads and pipeline. My wife would say that my working week will always include one lunch meeting in London too…..
September 13, 2019
Colin Dunne, Sales Manager, Jetcraft
Location: London
How long have you been at Jetcraft?
I started with Jetcraft on April Fool’s day 2019.
What are your responsibilities within the global Jetcraft team?
I work closely with two Sales Directors, one in the London office who is responsible for Northern Europe and one in Dubai who looks after the Middle East. I help them plan and execute business development strategies within their regions and also support them on any deals that they are currently working on.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
I’m lucky that I can either cycle or get the tube to work. The cycle takes me through Hyde Park and if I get the Tube I can walk the last bit through Green Park. Either way I get a fix of open green space before I head to the office. Emails are always checked and if there is anything urgent I‘ll get to that. If it’s not holding up a deal, I prefer to focus on the proactive business development tasks. It’s a balancing act. I could be valuing an aircraft one minute to setting up meetings in another country the next, then out reviewing a prospective aircraft that has just surfaced that week.
August 7, 2019
Rodger Renaud, President / COO, West Star Aviation
How long have you been at your current organization?
I started at West Star in April of 2012.
What are your responsibilities within your organization?
President and COO – mostly business development, operations and strategy. I have a hand in everything – an overarching vison for everything to come together. There is always a master plan in mind and it takes a lot of coordination with the executive team to pull it off.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
I start every day by walking the floor. I ask questions, check in on people, address concerns, or just stop by and ask, “How is your day?” What I learn from that every day is a great indicator of how things are going, and I really enjoy the hangar camaraderie.
I’m on email all day long. It’s time consuming, but I believe being responsive is key to not only being effective, but also to buidling genuine and valuable communication. It’s the same with phone calls from customers where it’s anything from sharing intel, reviewing customer feedback on projects, or just staying in touch.
July 25, 2019
Melody Phillips, Sales Engineer, Jetcraft
Location: Hong Kong
How long have you been at Jetcraft?
I joined the Hong Kong office in May 2018, so it’s been just over a year now.
What are your responsibilities within the global Jetcraft team?
I support David Dixon and Tim Yue for the South East Asia Region as well as Mick Doohan & Daniel Renwick for AUS & NZ. I primarily assist with the generating of specs, conducting market research, technical reviews, Valuations and whatever they may need in order to get those transactions successfully completed.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
Most days are spent at my desk providing the necessary sales support to my sales directors, other times it requires me networking with clients & customers at events or airshows in my designated areas. The gathering of information takes most of my time in order to provide my sales directors with as much information as possible. Again this is aviation, there is no such thing as a typical day or week, but it does make things interesting and the job is never boring.
What do you love most about your job?
Diversity! Living and working in Hong Kong is amazing, getting to meet people in this industry from all over Asia-Pacific is always fun and exciting to grow my network.
June 7, 2019
Jeremy Bogle, Executive Vice President, JetSelect Aviation
How long have you been at your current organization?
11 years
What are your responsibilities within your organization?
Help to oversee the operation of a 25+ aircraft fleet, to include sales, maintenance, and operations.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
It can involve walking a prospective owner through the operating cost of aircraft ownership, solving mechanical and crew issues, sales proposals, maintenance planning with owners, etc
What do you love most about your job?
I love the diversity in our side of the business and the ability to interact with customers on a daily basis. Working around airplanes is exciting but trying to stay one step ahead of your aircraft owner is demanding and requires attention to detail in everything we do.
May 14, 2019
Francois Gautier, Founder and CEO, Blueberry Aviation
How long have you been at your current organization?
I founded the company in 2003 after 14 years at Airbus where I met and worked closely with Jetcraft owner Jahid Fazal-Karim. Over the last 16 years my team and I have developed two distinct activities, commercial aircraft sales and lease to airlines, financiers and lessors, and civil helicopter trade to operators, corporations and private individuals.
What are your responsibilities within your organization?
I am a very hands on CEO, sharing my time between the commercial aircraft and helicopter commercial activities. I define strategies with the teams and am in the loop of most transactions, but leave the teams much autonomy including to suggest ideas and new directions. I am here if they need me. Meanwhile I focus on business development.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
There is no such thing as a typical day, especially as we have two different markets to cover. I travel a lot but when I am in the office, my door is always open and I am often seen sitting in one of the teams’ offices discussing opportunities and ongoing deals.
What do you love most about your job?
Building an exceptional team which performs well and has fun working together is the most fulfilling part of my job.
April 25, 2019
Jayan Fazal-Karim, former Sales Engineer, Jetcraft
Location: Brooklyn, NY, US
How long have you been at Jetcraft?
As an employee, 3 and a half years, and as a supporter, 11 years. I’ve seen Jetcraft and everyone who works with us grow immensely over that time. Not to mention they have seen me grow from the time I was 15 when my father joined the company. I am proud to call Jetcraft family.
What are your responsibilities within the global Jetcraft team?
Sales Engineers at Jetcraft are the designated right hand man to their assigned Sales Director(s). I like to call us their swiss army knife – whether we do things such as covering them for a showing or aircraft review, conducting market research, building specs, or creating thoughtful presentations for them to use, we do all we can to support our Sales Directors in helping them complete more transactions. I am very lucky to be able to support my father as his Sales Engineer.
Describe a typical day or week in your role.
As is common with the answers to this question from our team, there is no typical day or week! As cliché as that sounds it is really true. Some days you are locked in your office rifling through emails, completing aircraft valuations, and reviewing specs. Other days you are hopping from FBO to MRO conducting showings and tracking PPIs, and some days you are at events all around the world interacting with some of the most interesting people our world has to offer.
What do you love most about your job?
If I could sum it up in one word: Variety. No task is the same, no day is the same, no location is the same, no culture is the same, no person is the same, no aircraft is the same. I love exploring and appreciating the differences in our world and what better job to expose one to those differences.