Nov 11 2024

Executive Watch - John Boag, CEO, Avincis Posted 3 days ago ago by Admin

Avincis, is Europe’s largest emergency aerial services operator concentrating on aerial emergency medical services, aerial search and rescue operations and aerial firefighting missions. Their team of more than 2,400 pros fly and maintain a fleet of more than 200 aircraft in the nations of Spain, Italy, Norway, Sweden, Portugal and Finland. Avincis also flies operations outside Europe in Chile and Mozambique.

Leading this international organization from Lisbon, Portugal, is CEO John Boag, who in his easy-breezy Aussie accent jumps into our interview with a question of his own, “What would you like to know?”  We answer that the purpose of Executive Watch is to introduce readers to leaders who influence our industry, at which point he quips, “Great! Give me a few minutes to find one.” He then turns to his Group Director of Communications, “Daisy, will answer these questions; she’s much better at lying than me; I just say it straight.” This is going to be fun!

First Stepping Stone

Boag was born on Tasmania, an Australian island territory 200 miles off the mainland. He jokes that “We don’t publicize that I’m native Tasmanian.” After his incognito birth, he grew up in Adelaide, South Australia, and  speaks of a milestone day in the mid 1970s. When he was 10, he attended a military airshow with his father, an electrical engineer. “I still have the program from that show in my scrapbook. We saw Iriquois and Chinooks and I thought they were pretty cool and was impressed that helis could land about anywhere and I thought that was much better than flying from runway to runway.” (An astute observation for one so young!) This sparked a passion for aviation in the boy who, as he grew into his teens, served as a volunteer fireman in the South Australia Country Fire Service, and later took the ambitious leap to earn his helicopter pilot license at age 19. He subsequently left Adelaide for the Northern Territory to muster cattle where he flew Bell 47s and R22s. “I loved that job,” he says, but he left it to advance his career with a company called Lloyd Helicopters that eventually became CHC. Boag spent 14 years with them, accumulating 6,000 flight hours throughout his career in areas such as HEMS, firefighting, long-lining, and offshore transport. “During my career, I worked on every continent, with the exception of Antarctica, where I’d have loved to fly. I’ve had a very good career and have friends all around the globe.” He concedes he’d have made more money as an airline pilot, “but I wouldn’t have been as happy,” he says.

Next Steps

With all this experience, Boag summarizes, “I somehow wound up in management by starting out as a base manager and rose step-by-step from there until I’m where I am today.” Not bad for a pilot who began his career so early that he didn’t finish high school. Yet, he says, “I graduated from the school of hard knocks and tried to do the best job I could anywhere I was.” Those jobs in the pilot seat took a toll. “When you’re over 50, if you wake up without pain, you’re dead,” he half-jokes. (At least this writer doesn’t feel it’s a full joke.) However, Boag says he can’t imagine ever completely retiring. “I always like to be dabbling in something. I’ve held about every type of pilot position and worked in most sectors, and I’ve been very lucky to have a widely varied career. I’m good at lots of little things, but not good at everything.”

Disruptive Leader

This innate restlessness and curiosity shaped Boag into what he describes as “a disruptive leader.” He explains, “The tendency for an organization is to get stuck in its ways and not adapt. I tend to say let’s do this another way and that can be hard because our natural tendency is to resist change, but change always happens. For instance, when I started my career with a wet compass, GPS didn’t exist and now we use it all the time. If you’re not moving forward and improving your business, you’re actually going backwards.”

This philosophy is one reason why Boag is enthusiastic about  Avincis’ new partnership with CityAirbus NextGen. “We have a responsibility to provide emergency services and that partnership will help us shape the future of emergency operations,” he says. “If we can be part of how future aircraft are powered and used, that’s pretty awesome.” He acknowledges that not all new autonomous and alternative-energy technology will come to fruition in his career, but… “It would be very naïve to believe that nothing big is going to change, so we want to be at the leading edge of technology instead of trying to catch up.”

Leading people into the future out of their comfort zone often requires discussion. “We have a lot of debates, but everybody respects one another and goes out of their way to help one another,” he says. “Our company has a simple culture: 1. You look after yourself first: take care of your mental, physical and spiritual health, if faith is important to you. If you don’t take care of yourself, you can’t take care of others.  2. Next, look after your family and that can even be your parents and cousins. Keep your work and family life in balance; don’t neglect family time; it’s important. 3. Look after each other at work. So, that’s our company culture. We’re an odd company because we have those values that are decided by our employees and we actually believe they’re important.”

Boag also believes it's very important to hire the right people. “First, they have to be a good person…. Our team (in Lisbon) eats lunch every day on the deck and some days we talk about work and other days it’s all about family—and some days we debate the color of orange juice.”

Life Balance

One subject that Boag does not debate is his need for recreation and relaxation. “I’ve been an executive most of my life and have learned the need to destress,” he says. For him, this can be as ordinary as lifting weights at the gym or building a new deck on his home—or tinkering on his old Porsche.  When driving, he enjoys listening to podcasts “especially ones that teach me something new.”

The subject that most uplifts him is not accomplished hobbies or business successes, but family. He says his three children are his greatest success “without question,” but he immediately shares that credit with his wife and their mother, Veronique, whom he amusingly calls “The Viper.”  When asked if she currently works outside the home, Boag chuckles, “She works fulltime putting up with my sh-t. She tells me every day that it's a fulltime job.”  Then, more seriously he says, “Being an aviator can keep you away from your family and having a wife who can understand and live with that is a really good thing. I was away for much of our children’s youth, flying and working; so most of the credit goes to Veronique. Some would say they grew up despite their father and they’re now wonderful people who are very caring and respectful of others.” Two of the three are currently in the aviation industry: one son is a helicopter pilot and the other works in operations. Their sister has worked in the industry and Boag suspects she might return to it.  He muses, “Ten years ago, if you told me any of our kids would work in aviation, I’d have thought you mad—and yet it happened.” Then he concludes with a general insight, not only on his children’s path, but on the path of many of us, “Life’s one stepping stone after another; where you start out isn’t necessarily the path you’ll follow.”

Once, a 10-year-old boy first found his footing on a stone at a South Australia airshow. As he grew, he hopped from helipad to helipad all over the globe to land now in Portugal with a proud and supportive family and with a rewarding helicopter career.

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