BOARD(ROOM) GAMES
PEOPLE LOVE comparing business to sport and board games. They love talking about CEOs playing 3D chess with their opponents or businesses hitting it out of the park.
While fun, the analogy is, of course, far too simplistic. Sports have fixed rules and officials watching closely. There is an end point when games or races are won. Business is much more complicated, messier and much harder to analyse.
As our interview with Adel Mardini of Jetex shows, choosing where to build FBOs is not as simple as Risk – where you take out a board and plan world domination – or Monopoly where you choose sites. Mardini, who is competing against big companies such as BBA (owner of Landmark) and Jet Aviation (owned by General Dynamics) is placing bets both on developed markets (like France) and on emerging markets based largely on instinct.
One area where the sports metaphor does partly work is in aircraft transactions, which is very much a team sport. Deals work when you have a team of specialists – aircraft brokers, lawyers, registries, insurance brokers, tax experts, technical specialists and others – all working together (and concentrating on their own specialism).
Unfortunately, we cannot recognise everyone, but the CJI Dealmakers International 30 applauds the people leading sales and the ones shaping the wider market. We feel guilty for not including everyone involved in transactions (such as lawyers) and I am sure have left others out. Please tell me if you agree.
Pushing the sports metaphor to breaking point, I am delighted to tell you that Corporate Jet Investor’s parent company has been awarded a cup - the Queen’s Award for Enterprise for International Trade. This is the UK’s most prestigious business award and we’d like to thank all of our readers, delegates, sponsors, advertisers and speakers who have supported us since we launched for helping us win this award. We will be toasting you when we go to Buckingham Palace later this year.
As always, please let us know if you would like us to cover any issues or stories and we hope to see you around the world in the coming months. Let the games continue!
LOUISA WHYTE, Publisher
Our next events
September 23 and 24, 2019
Grand Hyatt, San Francisco
November 12 and 13, 2019
Fontainebleau, Miami
February 3 and 4, 2020
The Landmark, London
February 5 and 6, 2020
The Landmark, London
February 25 and 26, 2020
The Royal Garden Hotel
Please email [email protected] to register or if you would like more information.