Shashank Nigam is a globally sought-after consultant, speaker and thought leader on airline branding and customer engagement strategy. He is the CEO of SimpliFlying, the leading strategy firm that enables airlines and airports to drive key business goals through superior customer engagement. SimpliFlying.com is one of the Top 2 blogs on aviation, and their Twitter handle (@simpliflying) is one of the Top 5 most influential on airlines.
Nigam is also the youngest winner of the Global Brand Leadership Award and has addressed senior aviation executives globally, from Chile to Canada and from Sydney to San Francisco. Nigam’s impassioned, straight-shooting and honest perspectives have found their way to major media outlets, including CNN Travel, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg UTV, NDTV Profit, Mashable and in leading publications like Airline Business, ATW, The Straits Times, Aviation Week, DARE, The Indian Express, and others.
Nigam studied Information Systems Management and Business Management at Singapore Management University and Carnegie Mellon University. Hailing from India, he splits his time between Singapore and Vancouver, among other cities. Follow @simpliflying
Shubhodeep Pal is the Senior Innovation Officer at SimpliFlying and has been leading Product Development, Marketing and Business Development since December 2010 from the headquarters in Singapore. Among the successful initiatives spearheaded by him are the SimpliFlying Top 10 case-packs which have received more than 100,000 views till date. His writings have appeared extensively on SimpliFlying as well as revered industry outlets such as Tnooz and Loyalty360. He has considerable experience working in the social media sphere, having also conducted a workshop at the Ministry of Home Affairs, Singapore. He has written an introductory e-book for social media newbies and has previously interned at the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) as well.
His wide range of interests include startups, programming, economics, geopolitics, film-direction/criticism and literature. His first collection of poems, Interruptions was released in 2009. His blog, The Novel Experiment, has been recently featured in The Sunday Guardian. Follow Shubhodeep
Marco Serusi joined SimpliFlying in November 2011 as Community Engagement Executive, and is based in Valencia, Spain. He specializes in creating content related to airline marketing strategies and in maintaining our thought leadership in this area through upcoming initiatives like eBooks and podcasts. In the short time he’s been with us, he’s already launched SimpliFlying on Google+ and re-launched our Facebook fan page.
Before joining SimpliFlying, Marco worked for Aeronova, a Spanish charter airline, where he started as an intern and, within a year, became the youngest director of the company, taking up his former position of Marketing and Development Director at age 23. Marco has a passion for travelling that is well represented by his curriculum. After leaving Italy aged 18, he graduated in Air Transport in the UK, and then moved to Spain where he earned his MBA and specialized in Marketing. He is fluent in three languages (Italian, English and Spanish) and he’s studying two more (French and Polish). You can connect with him on LinkedIn or Google Plus. Follow @diaporesis
Elizabeth Cecconi joined SimpliFlying in mid-Jan 2012 as the Community Engagement Executive at SimpliFlying, with a special focus on airports. She will be leading business development for airports globally for SimpliFlying, including providing strategy consulting for our clients, delivering MasterClasses and building thought leadership in the airport marketing field.
Elizabeth has her over 7.5 years of aviation marketing and air service development experience, having recently led all marketing and air service development initiatives at the South Bend Airport (SBN) in Indiana, and before that serving as the Marketing Manager and a key part of the three-member core marketing team at The Akron-Canton Airport (CAK) – one of the pioneers in using social media at airports. Elizabeth has a Bachelors in Science in Aviation Business Administration from Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University.
Elizabeth was the co-founder and former president of the Michiana Chapter of the Social Media Club, a member of the Aviation Association of Indiana Outreach Committee and a charter member of the American Association of Airport Executives Next Generation Leaders Council. In her free time she can usually be found Skiing, traveling or boating. You can connect with her on LinkedIn or Google+ as well. Follow Elizabeth
Robert Cook leads the Airports practice at SimpliFlying, based out of Toronto. He is the co-Founder and Managing Director of AirGate Solutions. He has over 20 years experience in the aviation industry, in which he was actively involved in new business development, consultancy and ancillary revenue activities.
Over the past 30 years, Robert has held key senior roles with global organizations such as GE, Westinghouse, AT&T, Northrop Grumman, SITA and British Telecom. He founded and currently serves as Chairman of Blackstone Gates, a consultancy, focused on business transformation and customer-centered strategies with projects ranging from customer experience management, revenue generation initiatives, ancillary airline revenues and airport retail. Follow Robert
Rachel Levy is one of SimpliFlying’s most admired consultants working on key aviation projects. She has a lot of experience working with clients to develop and implement marketing and social media strategies, tactics and training. She works with a wide variety of clients from B2B to consumer products to pharmaceuticals. Rachel has developed a name for herself as someone in the forefront of social media. In addition to her own consulting practice, Rachel also runs WebinarListings, which is a directory of online seminars.
Prior to her role as consultant, she worked in marketing for Abbott Laboratories, Kraft Foods, Jim Beam Brands and the JCCs of Greater Boston. Rachel has also written extensively on SimpliFlying. Follow Rachel
Kal Joffres works on key aviation consulting projects for SimpliFlying. He has nearly a decade of experience in consulting and investment, guiding clients in business strategy and marketing communications. Having worked across North America, the Middle East, and Asia, Kal brings to bear extensive experience and knowledge on market development. He combines his unique social marketing and multi-cultural business expertise to successfully facilitate programmes in the areas of strategic road mapping, creating social change, and social media marketing.
In addition to his work with SimpliFlying, he’s a core member of Tandemic – a social media consultancy based out of Malaysia, Kal also serves as Chief Operating Officer of the Tandem Fund, a venture fund investing in social enterprises.
Previously, Kal was a consultant at a major investment bank, served as a Partner at Tandem Consulting Group, and founded Wiredpalm, a web-based software development company in Montreal.
SimpliFlying, through SimpliFlying University, and in partnership with IATA offers advanced training and certification courses in for airline executives looking to get hands-on experience in social media tools and platforms and advance their marketing strategy. These case-study based courses offer interactive sessions conducted by a SimpliFlying Certified Trainer and offer in-depth analysis into the latest trends in social media while stimulating participants to come up with solutions of their own to pertinent questions. To learn more, read this.
Here’s our roster of SimpliFlying Certified IATA Trainers:
Shashank Nigam is the Founder/CEO of SimpliFlying and is globally recognized for his views and insights on the convergence of airline branding with PR, Traditional Media and Social Media. Considered one of the original thought leaders who paved the way for Airlines 2.0. Nigam is the youngest winner of the Global Brand Leadership Award, having led interactive programs for leading airlines, airports and even hotels, globally. Essentially, by driving engaging and profitable conversations between brands and customers.
On Twitter, Nigam (@simpliflying) is one of the Top 10 most influential on airlines. He actively contributes his thoughts and experiences through keynotes (watch him speaking), industry appearances, books, articles and essays as a way of helping the airline industry understand and embrace the new dynamics fueling an evolutionary genre of marketing, service, and influence. Aviation industry veteran Ludo Van Vooren refers to Nigam “…as a prophet converting one aerospace business at the time to the brave new ways of Social Media.”
Nigam has received a lot of attention for his ideas concerning airline branding and social media, having been interviewed on CNN Travel, CNBC, MSNBC, Bloomberg UTV, NDTV Profit and in leading press like Airline Business, ATW, The Straits Times, Aviation Week, DARE and The Indian Express over the past few years.
Click here to read Shashank’s detailed bio (pdf). Shashank is also available for consulting, speaking and writing engagements.
Robert Cook (@airgatesolution) is the co-Founder and Managing Director of AirGate Solutions. He has over 20 years experience in the aviation industry, in which he was actively involved in new business development, consultancy and ancillary revenue activities. Robert will be leading the Airports Practice at SimpliFlying, based out of Toronto.
Over the past 30 years, Robert has held key senior roles with global organizations such as GE, Westinghouse, AT&T, Northrop Grumman, SITA and British Telecom. He founded and currently serves as Chairman of Blackstone Gates, a consultancy, focused on business transformation and customer-centered strategies with projects ranging from customer experience management, revenue generation initiatives, ancillary airline revenues and airport retail.
In addition, SimpliFlying has a distinguished Board of Advisors graced by respectable stalwarts from various fields. The stellar team of advisors mentors the SimpliFlying team on business strategy and shares their wisdom about the nuances of the industry to keep SimpliFlying steering forward.
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Donald Schenk |
Beth Mastre |
Chris Brogan |
Robin Speculand |
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[...] Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimpliFlying had some meat in his talk that pulled us back after our coffee break on day one. He made sure that [...]
November 15th, 2011 at 4:25 am[...] Along with money, educating the fans about the new technology was a challenge too considering the beliefs that fans had. However, this challenge was quite positively handled by fans who went on to educate other fans without the brand’s intervention. This amazing example of C2C in Indian airline industry was shared at #SocialIndia conference too by Shashank Nigam, CEO of SimplyFlying. [...]
November 19th, 2011 at 5:12 am