Georgina Heron - Director of Transformation, Air Charter Service

During the pandemic I thought about how it was affecting people and their work. This led me to think about people’s jobs and how they had got where they are today. Two people in my network of friends piqued my curiosity and one of them was my latest guest Georgina Heron. Georgina works for a private jet charter company called Air Charter Service. George started working here in her summer holidays and temped in all the different departments from accounts to marketing. This enabled her to get a feel for the business and understand it from the ground up. Some may say it was like a unofficial grad scheme?

Georgina was always pretty sure she wanted to study Geography at university and thought she may also become a university professor post graduation. Edinburgh was the destination but after falling severely ill in her first term, in a delirious state, she announced to her mum that she wanted to quit and join a different university the year after.

Off she went to Nottingham and loved it there. In her summer holidays she temped for ACS but when she graduated, she didn’t think she had what it took to join the company at entry level as a broker. George took a different path working for a start up in events, in the 2008 recession. Here she learned the hard way it wasn’t for her and an old colleague convinced her she was up to the job of junior broker. She knew the people, she knew the business, it was close to home, what did she have to lose?

It was interesting hearing how George first started and obviously the internet wasn’t up to what it is now so she was having to manually search the papers and speak to people on the phone to find potential leads for the private jet services. She didn’t sugar coat it and it sounded pretty tough but she persevered (as she won’t be beaten) and succeeded, working her way to the top over the years and being promoted to director managing 22 junior brokers.

In 2019 George decided to start a family with her husband. Rafferty was born in February 2020. A month later, Georgina had a 4 week old baby and a global pandemic had hit. George kept in touch with ACS during her maternity leave, obviously times were tough but aircraft were still being used for cargo and also to get people back to where they needed to be. The logistics were like nothing they had known before. Whilst on maternity leave, Georgina realised that she couldn’t go back to being a senior broker, on call for clients 24/7 with a young child. The relationship George had with the business and her chairman meant she felt able to discuss what her return would look like. Between them, they created a new role which suited Georgina’s skill set and ambitions and would also benefit the company’s objectives and goals. They created a new role, Director of Transformation and so far Georgina is loving it!

If you want to learn more about ACS Private Jet company and how the founder started it up, look here: ACS Journey

If you want to learn more about working in aviation, have a look here: Aviation Careers Information Commercial PPL Information