Tom has a reputation as a successful and versatile airline operations professional, with more than 16 years’ increasingly senior experience in front line, operational leadership, corporate resilience, business continuity and crisis management roles at Virgin Atlantic in London and Virgin Australia in Sydney, as well as the utilities industry.

An accomplished corporate crisis leader, Tom held the role of Crisis Management Centre Commander (‘Silver Commander’) and played a pivotal role in his airline’s response to incidents including the aftermath of a category five hurricane, internal and third-party industrial action, the prolonged closure of a major hub airport and the collapse of an affiliated business. He represented his airline at the UK Civil Aviation Authority command centre during the delivery stage of ‘Project Matterhorn’; the largest ever peace-time repatriation of British citizens, following the collapse of a major British tour operator.

More recently, Tom led the airline’s crisis team through the outbreak of Covid-19, balancing a complex operational environment with rapidly changing global health requirements and implementing proportionate consumer and staff confidence measures in order to continue essential flight operations.

Tom takes a global view of airline emergency response, having held a coveted position on the organising committee of the IATA Airline Emergency Response Forum, through which in 2019, in Montreal, he shared best practice response to handling to two simultaneous crisis incidents with ERP practitioners and industry experts assembled from more than eighty major international airlines. He was a member of the United Kingdom Airline Emergency Planning Group, custodian of the emergency response manual at Virgin Atlantic and responsible for continuous improvement and training delivery of the ‘in-house’ family assistance team.

Tom is an avid traveller, holds a Private Pilot’s Licence, and is based in London.