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Leadership

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Peter Smales - Founding Partner

Peter Smales

An Australian national born and raised in Papua New Guinea and educated in Australia in Commerce (Law) and Business Studies (Accounting/Marketing), Peter Smales began his aviation business career 1979 in Sydney as an executive management cadet with Australia's largest general aviation sales and services enterprise, Hawker Pacific, a major subsidiary at the time of the Hawker Siddeley Group, the then global British aircraft and heavy industrial component manufacturer.

As an international aircraft sales and aviation services and operations business management and group executive at Hawker Pacific until 2002, and then for seven years at ExecuJet, Peter has lived and worked in many different locations in Australia, Asia, the Middle East and Europe. During that time Peter has affirmed his professional credentials as an astute international businessman and has built a solid reputation in general aviation circles as an ethical but strong negotiator and seasoned international relations ambassador. He has established an enviable network of contacts and connections around the world, the result of thirty years working intimately with strategic partners, clients, suppliers and industry representatives in more than 80 countries, and travelling extensively and regularly around Australasia, the Pacific, Far East, South East and Sub-Continental Asia, the Middle East, Southern Africa, Europe and North America.

Before Peter left ExecuJet in mid 2009 he had been a principal architect and leader in ExecuJet's European strategic business development and consolidation process, acting as both a Group Executive Director and Managing Director of ExecuJet Europe and Chief Executive of the company’s European aircraft operations and aftermarket services subsidiaries ExecuJet Scandinavia A/S (Copenhagen), ExecuJet UK Ltd (London) and ExecuJet Switzerland AG (Zürich).

Complementing his contribution to the business development of both Hawker Pacific and ExecuJet, Peter sold and/or was instrumental in directly overseeing the sale globally of an impressive number of new and pre-owned helicopters, civil tiltrotors, turboprops and business jets, including the innovative Bell/Agusta BA609 Civil Tiltrotor (today’s AgustaWestland AW609) and the Aerion Supersonic Business Jet (today’s Aerion AS2).

In May 2009 Peter redirected his attention to Indigo Lyon, the aircraft sales and technology-focused business development and management consultancy he established 2001 in Sydney, Australia, incorporated today in the United Kingdom and globally headquartered in Hale, just south of Manchester..

Simon Williamson - Partner

Simon Wlliamson

Originally from London and, over three decades, internationally educated and working globally while domiciled in the UAE, Bahrain, Thailand, Hong Kong, USA, United Kingdom and Spain, Simon was born into a multi-national family of international explorers, innovators and entrepreneurs, for two generations already deeply involved operationally and commercially in general and business aviation.

But Simon launched his own career long before joining the family’s aviation consultancy and aircraft sales brokerage business. Determined to prove and educate himself in diverse markets, Simon first accepted a challenging position at one of Britain’s largest business to business sales companies tasked with setting up a new UK-wide internal helpdesk. This multifaceted role and the project over which Simon was responsible greatly benefited from his natural entrepreneurial instinct, at the same time affording him the opportunity to broaden his commercial education and sharpen his sales and negotiating skill sets.

With one complex systems integration project successfully implemented, Simon turned his attention to the automotive industry, teaming with a group of leasing and sales professionals negotiating sales representation and trading packages with automobile OEM’s and financiers and selling luxury automobiles and tailored leasing and post-lease resale packages to private and corporate clients.

Simon’s success in his next UK based venture, as creative visionary, co-founder, and General Manager of what became, before it’s sale, a large and acclaimed regional restaurant, bar and fashionable night club, rounded out a very interesting and challenging decade of on-the-job sales and business education, setting the perfect stage for his move in 2009 to, as a risk sharing partner and head of marketing, sales and commercial projects; Indigo Lyon.

Principally sales focused, including soliciting and securing direct sales mandates from aircraft owners and marketing their aircraft thereafter, Simon’s responsibilities also include managing the upkeep of existing relationships to protect repeat business opportunities and guiding aircraft purchasers in the acquisition, delivery and post purchase operations management process.