FINANCE MONTHLY CEO AWARDS 2014 Winner...

MAURIZIO MERLO Switzerland

CEO of Darwin Airline

ABOUT MAURIZIO MERLO Maurizio Merlo was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Darwin Airline in 2011. Prior to this he has held various senior positions at Darwin Airline since

Q

CEO INSIGHT... What

important

2004 including Accountable Manager and Chief Operating Officer, Post Holder Crew Training and Post Holder Flight Operations. He was also instrumental in

the initial certification and development of Darwin Airline. Prior to this, his career in aviation includes roles at Crossair and Swiss International Airline commanding

SB20 and SB340 aircrafts. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from SSEA, Bellinzona and a range of qualifications relating to aviation.

EUROPE

are your most professional

achievements at your current company?

I can surely confirm that during my experience as CEO for Darwin Airline the most important achievement, reached so far, has been successful closure of the deal with Etihad Airways: as of November 2013, we became one of the equity partners of the fastest growing airline carrier, confirming and enhancing our multi-alliance strategy adopted two years ago. This partnership was the acknowledgement of our high quality and service standards we offered and the confirmation of our efforts to deliver them.

Q How did you do that?

Always being in the frontline and continuing passionately motivating my employees. I firmly believe, in fact, that the success of a CEO and - of course - of its company is strictly related to the great commitment and the steadiness of its employees, sharing a common vision and strategy to hit company business goals and objectives.

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What education or prior experience helped you succeed at your current company?

In these 10 years spent in Darwin Airline, I have had the opportunity to cover different roles in the company and for sure this was really helpful for me to gain an overall overview on different operations

and activities conducted in the different departments. In addition to this the continuous changing aviation market gave me the opportunity to manage a wide range of challenges and experiences, sharpening my open-mind and 360 degrees approach.

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What are the key success factors for a CEO? What are the key challenges for a CEO?

In my opinion, a leader must be flexible to quickly change his strategy according to the performance results and of course to the market conditions. Internally, it is a must to involve the staff: my suggestion is to avoid silos and sharing the vision and the mission of the company with all, motivating the employees to commit and focus together on the company goals and objectives.

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How do you manage the relationship with your Board of

Directors?

The relations with our Board of Directors are regular with constant flow of communications and the key to this relation is to have a jointly agreed strategy.

What do you look for in your successor? What advice do you give to rising CEOs?

As I already mentioned before, the flexibility, out-of-box thinking and the capability to create a strong management team are the key factors for the success of a CEO. A CEO is a leader not a boss!

Of course, we have different stakeholders, with different needs and relations with us, and we always try to balance and evaluate the approach to adopt to ensure a mutual satisfaction.

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How do you describe your leadership style?

As already said, I involve my staff and maintain authoritative but not authoritarian positions, respecting all different opinions and giving the opportunity to share new ideas and food for thoughts, listening and leading go hand-in-hand.

Maurizio Merlo, CEO of Dawin Airline Website: www.etihadregional.com

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For sure now we are all in a game-changing period for the aviation industry and I believe that in the future the scenario will be dominated by the airline carriers able to create strategic alliances reflecting in real added value synergies and cost savings to successful compete on the global market.

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Can you share with us a CEO humour?

My slogan, that is also my constant state of mind, is “Never give up”: for sure if you persist with passion and tenacity you will reach your goals!

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Do you admire another CEO or a leader (current or

historical)? Why?

Of course among the CEO of aviation industry, I admire Etihad Airways President and CEO, James Hogan for his great strategic approach and talent to reshape the conditions of the global aviation market with his strategic vision and - most of all - for his charisma and ability to transmit all the passion and the motivation to his staff and partners.

Looking at the past, I would like to mention Moritz Suter, founder and CEO of Crossair, who launched de facto the first regional airline company in Europe. I was for 12 years in Crossair and it was my first professional experience in aviation.

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How do you balance and manage various stakeholders’

interests?

My approach is always to think global and act local. I don’t think that a business strategy can be implemented without taking into account of the specific and local characteristics, and also its specific competitive rules.

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How do you compete in a recession?

With a great costs accuracy, constant analysis of performances and continuous improvement by looking for innovation and efficiency. The ability to quickly modify and adapt when the results are not fitting our expectations is one of the key skills to compete on our challenging market.

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How do you see the future of your industry?

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How do you compete in a global business environment?