Aviation Week's Jeremy Kariuki speaks with Wheels Up Chief Marketing Officer Kristen Lauria about developments at the company, her path to leadership and the importance of mentorship for young women joining the industry in a Women's History Month special episode.
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Transcript
Jeremy Kariuki:
Hello and welcome to the BCA Podcast by Aviation Week Network. I am your host Jeremy Kariuki, Associate Editor for Business Aviation. March is celebrated as Women's History Month, and what better way to celebrate it than to talk to women in our industry. And today I'm joined by Wheels Up, Chief Marketing Officer, Kristen Lauria, welcome to the show.
Kristen Lauria:
Thank you, Jeremy. Thanks for having me.
Jeremy Kariuki:
So we've talked before, but it's been about a year since we've last spoke. Tell us about yourself and about what brought you into the aviation industry.
Kristen Lauria:
I have a very interesting background in many different professions in terms of industries, and my original degree is in aerospace engineering. So this is not too far from where I started out when I was just a kid in college. But my degree really took me over to the tech industry for quite some time. Then over to healthcare, to consulting, and then finally over to private aviation here at Wheels Up, which has been just an amazing opportunity.
But when I look back on my career and what really brought me here is every one of my roles is really bound by a few key things, and I describe them as companies that have to pivot to a new set of growth opportunities. Not necessarily just a new brand, but a brand that's been established and is in the middle of a pivot. Number two, brands that have enduring customer bases. And what I mean by that is there is growth ahead for a brand, they have to go find it, but yet the customer base is so willing to stay with them. And that excitement makes the role of the CMO in any one of those industries absolutely a transformative role and a role that's just exciting.
And then this goes hand in hand with the pivot, but usually there's an inflection point in an industry that is intriguing to me to see how do you take an established brand into a new market or a market that's slightly shifting. And so when I look back at my career while I spent, I don't know how many years in tech healthcare, people say, "How did you transition?" It really wasn't about my base education, it wasn't necessarily about the particular company. It was really about the growth opportunity in brands that had huge meaning to their customer base.
Jeremy Kariuki:
And speaking of customer bases, I wanted to know, are there any notable differences that you've noticed in today's customer base as compared to maybe 10 or 20 years ago?
Kristen Lauria:
In private aviation, yeah, I think there's a lot of... there's shifts in every industry and in every time, in every generation, I would say. I don't think it's just particular to private aviation, although there are some shifts. Same as in tech. The customer base has shifted to millennials. It was more about services than it was about assets. And that translates a little bit to our industry as well as the affluent, as there's a younger population of affluent customers, how they want to acquire services, how they want to buy into assets is very different model.
And I think we're seeing the same shift that we saw in technology. And actually I guess if you think in healthcare it was similar as well. It wasn't like being bound to a certain network, it's the ability to access the right medical care, whether it's through telehealth or a particular specialist or just different types of medicine. The younger generations want more flexibility and more accessibility.
I think that same thing applies in the private aviation space. It's not about buying into one asset or putting a lot of money down. It's the right aircraft, as we say all the time, it's the right aircraft for the right mission. It's about creating journeys and experiences that they haven't been able to do in the past. And that might be a private flight that combines commercial and private aviation and also the transportation in between and getting to a place that they haven't yet been to.
So I think the shift in people who are accessing our products and services is different in what they're interested in, but I think that shift goes into other industries as well. So for me, I've seen it several times and several cycles across several industries.
Jeremy Kariuki:
For the industry at large, for private aviation, business aviation, what have you, are there any trends that you're noticing in the customer experience side of this industry? Are there more popular destinations popping up? Are there certain types of flights that you're seeing an increase in, what's going on?
Kristen Lauria:
I do think that there are some trends, and I think it goes hand in hand with the whole experience economy. People are looking to, on one hand, be able to, as I mentioned before, leverage the combination of commercial and private, potentially going over to Europe and doing Delta One, if you will, over to Rome, and then a quick hop over to your final destination, and they want that seamless.
People don't want to be either sitting in airports and they don't want it to be difficult to get to their final destination. That's one trend that we're seeing. I think the experience economy though, is also driving a different trend. People wanting to be able to get to destinations that may not have been two week type destinations, but a quick hop over to an event, a quick hop over to a motor race or something like that.
One of the ones I love to talk about is a quick hop from New York or Atlanta over to the Finger Lakes to see a concert, spend the day on the lake and go back and doing that from a Friday to a Monday. We're seeing a lot of things around experiences that are really coming forward. The other thing that we're starting to see is people are looking to go to places they imagine, and I won't be able to name all of them, but instead of going to the most popular place, people don't want to necessarily go to Nassau, but Harbor Island or different places in The Bahamas, and that's true around the world. So how can they get to places that they couldn't have imagined before and are now possible because of the integration of the hybrid travel is how we would say it that's coming forward.
Jeremy Kariuki:
Absolutely. And as I'm sure you're well aware, Wheels Up was near bankruptcy in 2023, but has since recorded a sequential increase in revenue during Q4 2024, and with Delta Air Lines investment in mind, how has Wheels Up positioned itself for growth?
Kristen Lauria:
I think it really comes down to our offering is a flexible and accessible offering. And in the middle of last year, we looked to say, "However you want to fly with us, come fly with us. Whether you want to join the company as a member, or whether you want to just fly with us as an on-demand charter customer, you have the ability to access what we have to offer to really fulfill those journeys that you want to go on, whether it's corporate or whether it's personal travel."
And that arrangement and that set of offerings, I think has really helped us to address the needs of the target market that we have. So I think that simplification and people understanding how to access private aviation and that it is, it's sensible, if you will, not a massive investment upfront. And you can get on a plane, you can get on a plane in a week. If you need to go somewhere in a day, like wherever you need to go, and whether you need a small aircraft, a light aircraft, or a large aircraft or group charter, we have the ability to make that happen.
Jeremy Kariuki:
And in that same vein, could you tell me more about Wheels Up's rebranding and fleet renewal? It's looking more and more like a brand new version of Wheels Up seemingly every month.
Kristen Lauria:
So we did our fleet modernization strategy last year, and it's centered on the Phenom 300s and the Challengers. And these are two of the most popular aircraft that handle three-hour flights on a Phenom from across the... down the East Coast, for example, which is where many of our members fly, but also have the ability to go transcon.
We're also rebranding those aircraft and making the experience what people are looking for. So we're doing the interiors and the exterior so that the experience is consistent every time they get on an aircraft, but on top of these are very effective and very strong aircraft in terms of utility and maintenance and their ability to handle the missions. So overall, it's been extremely well accepted by our customers and more to come as we go through this year and we roll out that new fleet.
Jeremy Kariuki:
Awesome. I want to switch gears just a little bit to focus more about Women's History Month. In such a majority male field what has your experience been as a woman in leadership?
Kristen Lauria:
I'm not sure this is only in private aviation. To me it's always an exciting challenge, and I've never been one of those people to shy away from challenges. I think sometimes you got to step into the chaos. So whether it's about gender inequities or whatever it might be, you step in and you learn, and I find you learn a lot about yourself.
I think also if you really understand your craft and your profession and you learn through others, you just plow through it. You just handle what is there. Every industry has its own culture. Tech has its own culture, private aviation has its own culture. When I went to college as an aerospace engineer, I was the only graduating female in my class, but I didn't look at it like that.
And I will say what I learned very early on, being at companies like Xerox and like IBM, diversity was really more about diversity of thought and diversity of cultures around the world because they were international companies. So it taught me very early on to understand the context of others and to learn how to navigate and just have a seat at the table with them. So it's about challenges and being willing to lean into challenges
Jeremy Kariuki:
And on challenges, in your opinion, what has been the largest barrier to entry for women in this industry?
Kristen Lauria:
I think that it's hard for... When you're very young in your profession, it's hard to really foresee industries that are not obvious, like you don't see yourself in them. I don't think it's about education anymore. I don't think it's about willingness. I don't think it's about interest. I think it's about people seeing these types of industries and seeing themselves in them in terms of role models.
One of the things I'm real passionate about is how we bring up young women and show them the multitude of professions that they might be in. There are a lot of industries that are engineering based that don't necessarily have to be automotive even. Chemical engineering goes across cosmetics, so many different industries. So it's really seeing how you could apply your skills to different types of industries and seeing people who have done it before you.
And I think that all of us getting out there and talking and seeing, it's not one type of woman either, it's so many women from so many different backgrounds. And the more that we see women in pilot positions, and executive positions, as schedulers, whatever it might be, I think that helps young women break in, because I certainly believe that women have the capability and the talent, and now I think they have the education. So it's really about just seeing role models breaking barriers before them.
Jeremy Kariuki:
Absolutely. And I think that goes a lot into just exposure, showing women and young girls that this is a possible career path for them. In your experience, what role does mentorship play in that exposure?
Kristen Lauria:
Mentorship is everything. I talk all the time about mentorship and sponsorship and they're very different things. Some people will sponsor you to get into a role, other people mentor you on a daily basis and how you handle that role. And it's sort of like a penalty free type of relationship where you can try.
I was very fortunate to have an incredible set of mentors from the time that I was very, very young and some I didn't even know they were mentors, they just appeared as a part of my career. For example, when I was... Actually, let me take a step back too. It's not just people that have promoted you, it's people that tried to hold me back too. So I'll tell you, my guidance counselor in college told me I couldn't do engineering.
And I think that to this day, many, many years later, that motivated me to say, "Yeah, I can." So I've never forgotten that man, and I've never forgotten that conversation, but it motivates me every time. But I also had several men and women along the way recognize something different in me and gave me the strength to lean into my differences rather than doing a checkbox approach.
And I always work with people to say the checkbox is necessary, but it's not sufficient. I was very fortunate to have people say, "Yeah, but here's how you think differently. You're a systems thinker. You like to lean into challenges. You learn very quickly. Those are the things that you should lean into as you get each job."
And then there's been some very significant people, I'll mention a couple of them. Anne Mulcahy, who was the CEO of Xerox Corporation in the 90s, one of the first few women CEOs, she had written me a thank you note or a congratulations note, a handwritten note on something that I had done and this was very early on in my career. I still have it. I still have it. When I saw that handwritten congratulations, just at the top of the letter.
There was another gentleman who ran all of product development at Xerox Corporation, and I just knocked on his door one day. I didn't like the job I had, and I said I wanted to go work for him. And he took me in and he said, "Okay." And then I will say, there was a gentleman at IBM who made me an executive for the first time, and I was over seven months pregnant, and he took that chance on me. So there's been mentorship for me personally, for me in terms of developing my leadership skills and in terms of the jobs I wanted to engage with. So incredibly important, incredibly important along the way.
Jeremy Kariuki:
That's awesome. And with it being Women's History Month, are there any particular women in the industry or otherwise who you personally take inspiration from?
Kristen Lauria:
There's women I take inspiration from every day. I would say my peers right now, you met them last year. The peers that I have on board, we come from all very different backgrounds and they inspire me because they have very different skill sets. I take a lot of inspiration from younger women, some of the women on my team. One I joke with all the time that when I retire, I'm going to be the person who's going to do her slides for her because I feel so strongly that she's going to be a C-suite member.
And I'm inspired by her approach every day because it's very different than my approach after all my years’ experience. I take inspiration from young women. I have a daughter. And so a lot of the young high school girls and the way they see the world is very inspirational to me. And I try even after all my years of experience to say, "What should I do differently right now to help set up that world that they see going forward?" So I'm not going to say any names, but I will tell you I take inspiration from the people around me, the people that are the next steps, and then the people that are truly the next generation.
The mentors typically have paved the path before me, but right now a lot of my inspiration comes from mostly my peers and the next steps.
Jeremy Kariuki:
That's incredible. Well, Kristen, that's all the time we have for today. Thank you so much again for joining me on the podcast.
Kristen Lauria:
Jeremy, thank you so much. Always a pleasure.
Jeremy Kariuki:
Thanks for listening to the BCA podcast by Aviation Week Network. This week's episode was produced by Cory Hitt. If you enjoyed the show, don't forget to like or follow us on your podcast app of choice. If you'd like to support us, please leave a rating wherever you listen. Thanks again, and we'll see you next time.
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