Terra Firma Capital Partners

So I wanted to do something a little bit more mind opening, I guess, before I jumped into a cyclical reporting role.

So I ended up going to Terra Firma Capital Partners as a chief of staff.

Not seen that on too many CVs.

No, it's, yeah, I'm really fascinated by the Chief of Staff role.

I apologize if I got this wrong, Liam, but I, I've seen something in the past about- His connection

It's owned by Terra Firma Capital Partners, a private equity firm founded by British financier Guy Hands.

I know Terra Firma.

They acquired Annington for blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

They'd started by buying a portfolio from ILFC, but they decided to buy AWAS and put AWAS and Morgan Stanley Aircraft Finance together.

And I was fortunate enough to be chosen as the CEO of the new combined venture and stayed with that combined group for... know six years so overall i had nine years building awas from nothing to uh ultimately it's it's sailed to terra firma and then dae so uh yeah that was that was wonderful experience and i guess that's what transformed me into what would be seen as the aviation executive because everything I've done since has been focused on aviation rather than transport.

And that's what happens every time.

Yep, it happens every time.

They'd gone from being a courier company to buying Danzas and many, many big transport companies and putting them all together.

So John was CEO of DHL, I'm talking back in 2006 now, and he found that through this acquisition period, they'd acquired... uh you know lots of businesses and they ended up with 14 airlines in the dhl group there was no central management from an aviation perspective these airlines sat in either country operations or regional operations and i had seen you know from my days at answer worldwide i'd seen the impacts of that so you'd find dhl subsidiary companies competing to lease an individual aircraft you know bumping the price up you know So that's the sort of thing that was happening.

And John called me up after I'd sold AWAS to Terra Firma and said, you know, have you hung your boots up, Charlie, or are you ready for another challenge? And he asked me to join DHL and join him on the board as CEO of Global Aviation.

and to put together a strategy for aviation and a team to run it.