Slattery takes electric aircraft role
Swedish electric aircraft maker Heart Aerospace has appointed John Slattery, as non-executive chairman of its board of directors, while Slattery continues to serve as executive vice-president and chief commercial officer at GE Aerospace.
“I’m excited to take on this role at such a decisive time for our industry,” he said. “We are accountable to future generations, and if we are to reach carbon neutrality, we need to act with vision, courage, curiosity, and the sense of urgency demonstrated by the team at Heart Aerospace.”
Slattery added: “The segment targeted by Heart Aerospace is ripe for disruption. It will not only help with decarbonization of commercial aviation but will also democratize travel bringing commercial flight back to communities long since not served or indeed airports that are losing service today. The value proposition of the ES-30 regional hybrid electric airplane brings a classic ‘blue-ocean’ strategy to the market where everyone will benefit – including the environment.”
On the day of the appointment, Slattery delivered the closing speech at the ISTAT Sustainability Forum on 19 June and called on delegates to have the same “audacious goals” when approaching their decarbonisation ambitions as he has had when navigating his aviation career.
“When I started to get into different phases of my career, I learned about tacit knowledge and audacious goals and how you could go for them. And how things happen that you hadn't planned. And if you visualise, you can realise and make something happen that clearly was an audacious goal,” he said.
Slattery recalled his various roles. “The first phase of that for me, was an aircraft lessor, the objective was audacious to become the top three lessor in the world within five years… That happened in the early 2000s…. At Embraer, the audacious goal was to have an aircraft within 60 months certified... I had the honour to work with a team that triple-certified and brought it under budget and better than the technical spec.
“At GE I had a call from the chairman of GE, Larry Culp. I said, 'Larry, I really don't know anything about engines. I'm the wrong guy'…but I showed up and I started talking about decarbonisation, hydrogen hybrid electric… That was my new audacious goal and the team was excited about that audacious goal and at the end of the first year, I met my counterparts at CFM and Safran and we launched RISE.”
Anders Forslund, co-founder and chief executive officer of Heart Aerospace, said: “He is one of the defining industry leaders of the modern era, and he has a relentless drive towards decarbonizing air travel. As Heart grows as a company, John is a perfect fit for us. We couldn’t be more excited.”
Slattery served as president and chief executive officer of Embraer Commercial Aviation. Before that, he spent fifteen years in various executive roles at leading commercial aerospace advisory, aircraft leasing, and aviation banking organizations.
He is a fellow at The Royal Aeronautical Society and president emeritus of The Wings Club Foundation. He sits on the board of directors at ORBIS International and the board of governors at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. He also remains active at his alma mater, University of Limerick, as an adjunct professor in the Kemmy School of Business, where he received his MBA and more recently an honorary doctorate in economic science.
