John Williams
Consultant
Specialist: Management, Business Restructuring, Sales and Operations
Sectors: Airlines
John has extensive commercial airline experience including senior management positions in British Airways and has a detailed knowledge of the commercial and business aspects of the industry. He also has over ten years experience as a senior consultant specialising in on-site implementation, including pre-privatisation restructuring and commercial strategy. John has worked as an airline Managing Director and has frequently worked with governments at ministerial level with and with regulatory authorities.
During his career with British Airways, John held a number of specialist marketing and planning roles in the UK and overseas before being appointed Marketing Manager North East Europe and then Area Manager South East Asia, based in Bangkok.
John was then given responsibility for developing the airline’s distribution strategy and also the associated systems developments. This was at the time that airline distribution was a fast changing environment, shifting from an in house extension of the reservations system into the era of global CRS.
John then moved into airline consultancy, with Speedwing, the British Airways consultancy subsidiary, and later with Jacobs Consultancy. He performed a number of significant projects, each of which engrossed a wide ranging commercial brief. The projects included:
- Commercial Director, Air Botswana: developing commercial strategy in the run-up to potential privatisation.
- Airline expert member of the Transaction Advisor Team assisting the Government of Botswana in securing a strategic investor for Air Botswana
- Managing Director, Royal Swazi Airways: shaping and implementing pre-privatisation restructuring, including implementation of a major down sizing of the workforce.
- Executive Assistant to the President of Transbrasil, Sao Paulo: realigning commercial strategy plus implementation.
- Project Management of start-up airlines in Italy and the Falkland Islands as British Airways franchises.
- Commercial Director, Air Tanzania: securing a 49% shareholding sale to South African Airways and a subsequent restructuring of commercial strategy, fleet and operating network.
- Advisor to the CEO, Air Malawi: developing commercial strategy in the run-up to privatisation
- Study Team member advising the Government of Namibia on the performance of Air Namibia and future strategy options
John has a BSc (Hons) in Transport Administration from University of Salford and is a Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. He is a keen runner and is President of the British Airways Athletics Club
John joined MSP Solutions in 2007