CEO and Founder of AirAsia

 Background:
  • Tan Sri Anthony Francis "Tony" Fernandes,  is a Malaysian Indian entrepreneur. He is the founder of Tune Air Sdn. Bhd., who introduced the first budget no-frills airline, AirAsia, to Malaysians with the tagline "Now everyone can fly". 
  • Fernandes managed to turn AirAsia, a failing government-linked commercial airline, into a highly successful budget airline public-listed company. He has since founded the Tune Group of companies.
  • He was also instrumental in lobbying the then-Malaysian Prime Minister, Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohamad in mid-2003, to propose the idea of open skies agreements with neighbouring Thailand, Indonesia, and Singapore. As a result, these nations have granted landing rights to AirAsia and other discount carriers.
Achievements:
  • International Herald Tribune Award for the "Visionaries & Leadership Series", for his outstanding work in AirAsia
  • "Malaysian CEO of the Year 2003" in December 2003; so far awarded to only nine other recipients in the country, by American Express and Business Times. The award was an initiative to recognize entrepreneurial and managerial expertise and performance among leaders of Malaysian corporations.
  • Named the joint winner of the CEO of the Year 2003 award by American Express Corporate Services and Business Times
  • "Emerging Entrepreneur of the Year" in the Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur Of The Year Awards" in 2003
  • Made the list of Business Week's "25 Stars of Asia" in 2005
  • Malaysian Ernst & Young "Entrepreneur of the Year 2006"
  • "Excellence In Leadership - Asia Pacific Leadership Awards 2009"
  • 2010 Forbes Asia businessman of the year
  • 2011 No. 52, in FastCompany Top 100 Most Creative People in Business
Leadership Styles:
  • Charismatic
Tony Fernandes is known to be the charismatic CEO of Air Asia. “Despite having received various international awards and accolades for AirAsia and himself, Fernandes remains a very down-to-earth and approachable boss who has a quick smile for everyone. Fernandes was named FORBES ASIA’s 2010 Businessman of the Year and Forbes named him as a “single, charismatic pioneer” in the article. He is undoubtedly a charismatic speaker as he speaks at a level that the layman can understand. In fact, from his dressing; a ubiquitous cap and unassuming shirt, he does not take himself too seriously despite being the CEO of a multi-billion airline carrier. It is this ability to enrapture the masses that had enabled him to gain great traction within Malaysia. Due to the advent of social media, his reach has become ever more pervasive attracting thousands of likes on his Facebook page and followers on Twitter.In fact, Tony Fernandes is set to become a regular fixture of many Asian households as he is set to become the boss of the first Asian Apprentice, a role made iconic by Donald Trump.

Top 3 Leadership Traits:

1. Walk the Talk

Fernandes adopts a 'walk around' management style. He believes that if one sit up in his ivory tower and just look at financial reports, he is going to make some big mistakes. For a few days every month he works on the ground or in the cabin crew. He says he has learned a lot from working on the airline himself. He makes business decisions based on his own experiences, observations and feedback from his crews.
In the hospitality industry, a great leader must walk the talk. It is critical that he is seen with his employees and learn from ground experience. Staffs will then be appreciative of their leader and be motivated to do their best.

2. Employees Orientated

Fernandes says that to him, employees come first before his customers. He believes that in having a happy workforce, his staffs will look after his customers anyway. His company is said to have a culture department whose sole job is to organize parties. He has been known to search out new staff in queues. He looks for people who are driven, who have ambition and who are humble. He has hired many people at very strange places.

 With all great businesses, employees are the vital human resources that drive the core of daily’s revenues and profits. Being invested in his or her employees will portray a leader as caring and understanding, more like a family in a business rather than just a worker and boss relationship. As it is widely practiced in the hospitality industry, take care of your employees and they will take care of your customers.

3. Anti-hierarchy

Fernandes encourage people to speak up and get “every brain in the game” by relaxing formality and breaking down walls (literally — AirAsia executives sit with other Allstars in an open floor plan). A good example is how his office is constructed. It is smack at the heart of the company, with no walls and no doors. Everyone sees him and he sees everyone. He is Tony to everyone and he is in his polo shirt and with his famous baseball cap. Management sits on one huge stage in an open space office, where the chief pilot has a corner desk looking at the operations team, which is right next to the flight attendant team, which is right next to the reception area, and where there is no call center but an online chat customer service team.

 The hospitality industry is very much a people to people interactions basis. Therefore, having a hierarchy or chain of command sometimes make it difficult for effective communications. With everyone treating one another as friends or team members, the work produced would be more productive. Everyone gets the chance to share their thoughts and opinions on how to increase revenue and reduce costs.