NBAA Thought Leadership Webinar Offers Lessons from Aviation’s Top Leaders

Nov. 20, 2025

A panel of top business aviation executives agreed that the industry’s current success and future growth will require visionaries who have an unwavering focus on the customer and appreciate the strength of professional peer networks.

That was the key message from NBAA’s Nov. 19 Thought Leadership webinar, “Pioneers of Progress — Lessons from Aviation’s Top Leaders, sponsored by NBAA Leadership Council Member, Mesinger Jet Sales.

“Success happens when you prioritize your customers,” said Michael Amalfitano, president and CEO of Embraer Executive Jets. “All of the businesses out there, you have to reflect on what you prioritize for your customer and provide a very clear vision of who you are.

“Your shareholders, your employees, need to be aligned with that culture, and if you stay true and authentic to that vision, customers will see that in your brand,” Amalfitano added.

That customer-centric approach is core to Duncan Aviation’s decades of success, noted company Chair Todd Duncan. “That’s how Duncan Aviation was founded. We built a culture and brand to deliver quality service to our customers, and that’s how we continue to thrive today.”

Tomorrow’s leaders can be inventive with how they approach this customer focus, said Avfuel President and CEO Craig Sincock, who over the past four decades has built a team of four people into a global company.

“In our early days, we figured out that we’re really not just in the fuel business, we were in the customer business,” he said. “We started looking at the things that surrounded fuel supply, like trucks, storage tanks, credit and credit card processing, insurance and we worked to surround the fuel transaction with a lot of other things that would help the customers in their business,

“That’s how we succeeded,” he added, noting, “if you’re always focusing on the customer, the business will follow.”

Emily Deaton, CEO of jetAVIA, echoed the importance of customer focus. “Leadership is about putting the customer at the center of everything you do and building up your team and committing to the brand,” she said.

But the panelists agreed that customer focus alone is not enough for future leaders to prosper. The strength of professional peer networks and industry associations is equally vital. Sincock noted that “to move ahead in this industry, you have to understand the industry, and that means learning from your peers,”

“You should also continually invest in yourself, go back to school, if needed, and remember that industry associations are a really powerful tool to connect with other industry leaders,” Duncan added.

Future leaders should also take time to consider the concept of leadership, the panelists agreed, with Amalfitano stressing that leadership “is not about one single moment; it’s about the choices you make.”

For Deaton, great leaders see their role holistically. “You have to understand what leadership isn’t,” she noted. “Sometimes, people have a misperception of leadership as just being in charge, or just building people up and celebrating them, and while those are important aspects, leadership is so much more,” she said.

Deaton added: “It’s about impact, intentional decision making, sacrifice, commitment to vision, putting the customer in the center of everything you do, building up your team and committing to the brand.”