Lord Razzall CBE – Non-Executive Chairman
Lord Razzall is the trade and industry spokesman for the Liberal Democrat Party. His background is in the legal profession, qualifying as a solicitor in 1969 before moving into politics in 1974. He was Chief Executive of a leading legal firm in the early 1990s and was chosen as European Lawyer of the Year in 1992. In 1995 he set up his own consultancy business, Argonaut Associates, specialising in advising growth companies.Chris Belcher – Founder and Chief Executive
Chris has a background in electrical, telecommunications and data services and has run his own successful business over the last twelve years in the mobile telecommunications industry, with clients including Ericsson Ltd, British Telecom PLC, Hutchison Whampoa, T-Mobile and Orange PLC. His business was able to take advantage of the huge explosion in the telecoms industry over the last decade, and remained competitive and abreast of the latest technology.Chris handed the day to day running of the business over to a managing partner in 2005 to enable him to concentrate more fully on the early stages and initial research and feasibility of Premjet.
Robert Falkner – Finance Director
Prior to setting up his own financial consultancy business in 2003, Robert was Finance Director for the Online Travel Corporation for two years. Between 1983 and 2000 he held several key roles within British Airways, including Executive VP – North America (1989-91), Group Chief Accountant (1991-95), General Manager – Asia Pacific (1996-98) and General Manager – Financial Services (1998-2000).His background provides him with a broad range of experience in finance, marketing, IT and general management from roles in the UK and abroad. He has a particular strength in people management.
Paul Moore – Non-Executive Director
Paul has over 30 years’ experience in airline and travel industry licensing and has served as a licensing officer for many carriers. Among the roles he has held, he was Director Europe for Evergreen International Airline, Director of Passenger Services for Air Foyle (during a time when Air Foyle provided AOC and licensing cover for many start-up airlines including easyJet) and was the accountable manager at Air Cordial. Paul is a well-respected figure in the UK aviation industry.Paul Connellan – Non-Executive Director
Paul has more than 30 years’ experience in the travel industry, working in a variety of roles for several leading players. These include Managing Director of Touropa Britain (part of the TUI travel group) and Marketing Director for STTB Ltd., a travel agency in Saudi Arabia. He was Director of Customer Services for Manchester Airport, and was subsequently promoted to Marketing Director. During this time the airport achieved the status of Best World Airport for Customer Service in the IATA poll of 1996.Paul now runs his own specialist consultancy concerned with marketing and customer service, with a strong focus on transport and tourism. He also holds one other NED position at a Primary Care Trust.
Peter Evans – Director of Operations
Peter has over 20 years’ aviation experience with a number of leading companies, including Air Europe, City Airways, Servisair and Virgin. He began his career at Air Europe, where he focused on crew scheduling. He joined Virgin Atlantic in 1989 and held the post of Operations Director for over ten years. While at Virgin, Peter was also responsible for setting up and managing Virgin Sun, the tour division of the company.Upon leaving Virgin, Peter set up his own travel consultancy before joining Mytravel in a range of senior operational roles, including Accountable Manager. From there, he moved on to co-found Flyjet and ran its operations both independently and when the Company was acquired by Silverjet.
Andy Mitchell – Marketing Director
Andy’s strengths cover the whole marketing spectrum from Blue Chip organisations to consumer research. Having been based in the UK and overseas for companies such as Taylor Nelson Sofres and Lightspeed, he has developed a vast knowledge of consumer targeted marketing techniques and has worked with companies such as Coca Cola Schweppes, McDonalds Corporation, Cereal Partners and Whitbread PLC developing amongst other things consumer research facilities, including web based research.Tony Leary – Commercial Director
Tony brings a wealth of finance experience to the Company. He is an experienced securities trader whose career has spanned Europe’s main financial centres including Frankfurt, Zurich and London. Prior to taking up his full-time directorship at Premjet, Tony was an Equity & Derivatives Trader at Archer Daniels Midland Investor Services International (ADM), in London City. Tony’s clients include Deutsche Bank Proprietary desk, Fortis Bank European Derivatives and Helvetia Wealth Management.He also has extensive experience in commercial fund raising through private as well as public share placements. Tony was also Regional Sales Manager at Endsleigh Insurance Services Limited.
Glenvil Smith – Legal Counsel and Company Secretary
With more than 30 years’ experience as a solicitor, Glenvil has focused his attention for most of that time on travel and aviation. Having qualified as a Solicitor with Norton Rose, he was In-house Counsel to Dan Air, at the time the UK's second largest airline. He went on to become a Partner at the Oxford law practice of Dallas Brett and is currently a Consultant to Manches Solicitors in London. Glenvil is a Member of the European Air Law Association and a Lecturer in Air Law and Negotiation on the MSc course in Air Transport Management at City University. He also acts as a consultant to a number of airlines.Chris Soper – Group Accountant
Chris has more than 30 years’ experience in accountancy, having been involved for much of that time with travel and aviation companies. For the past sixteen years Chris has been Finance Director at Air Foyle, a charter operator supplying most of the major UK and international airlines. In this role, he has specialised in running financial and budgetary controls for a variety of start-up airlines, including Sunseeker, easyJet and Debonair.Mike Sessions – Operations Consultant
Mike is vastly experienced in the airline industry and has held directorships at board level for major UK airlines for the last fifteen years and senior positions in the industry for the last twenty.Although experienced in all aspects of the aviation industry from CAA regulation to JAROps manual production, Mike’s speciality is Aviation Sales and Marketing, and he has been responsible for airlines’ sales generation and compliance with CAA regulations.
Mike has worked in all facets of the aviation industry and among his skills are Aircraft Sales & Leasing; ACMI (Aircraft Crew, Maintenance and Insurance) leasing; Operation and Engineering Consultancy; Charter Broking.
Tom Pearce-Carr – Director of Flight Operations
Tom began his flying career in the early 1960s, flying for BEA. As it merged with BOAC to form British Airways, he stayed with BA and was promoted to Captain in 1975. He has over 20,000 hours’ flying experience and has flown a variety of aircraft, including Vickers Vanguard, BAC 1-11 and Boeing 747-400s.Tom was Chief Pilot and Assistant Operations Director for Air Foyle, then moved on to fly for easyJet.
