Stack.aero has welcomed Cat Buchanan as director of business development. Reporting to the CEO, her mandate is to raise the company's profile internationally, qualify prospective clients and drive adoption of the upcoming second generation of the Stack.aero system, with specific focus on business aircraft charter brokers in Europe and the Middle East.

“We are very pleased to welcome Cat to the Stack.aero team,” says CEO Greg Jarrett. “She brings a lot to the table: 15 years of expertise and C-level experience in business aviation charter and brokerage, exceptional knowledge of the Middle East market, an impressive academic record and a lifelong passion for flying.”

“The Stack.aero team has a unique vision to offer a 'central nervous system' that optimises the entire sales/operations cycle for brokers and charter salespeople,” adds Buchanan. “Drawing from my real world experience with both boutique charter and large-fleet operators, I believe that I can help shape how we develop our business. Having lived the operational challenges of charter, I clearly see the significant commercial impact of automating and digitising tasks while having real time visibility into aircraft availability and customer data. Simply put, we help our clients grow.”

Previously she spent 15 years in charter, brokerage and related business aviation services, principally in the UAE. Most recently, she held several C-level roles at Vertis Aviation, after spending time as head of brokerage and FBO sales at Royal Jet, sales manager at Chapman Freeborn and passenger charter analyst at Air Charter Service.

Buchanan's passion for aviation dates back to her youth. She joined the Air Training Corps at age 13 and earned a single engine piston private pilot licence at 18. Later, she received a BSc (Hons) in aviation technology and management from the University of Leeds and a Postgraduate Diploma in data ethics, AI and responsible iInnovation from the University of Edinburgh. Currently, she is completing an MSt in science communications from the University of Cambridge.

“Cat's expertise will allow her to develop the charter broker segment of the market as we prepare to launch a new version of our system that is tailor made for it," says Jarrett. "Ultimately, our objective is to deliver technology solutions that help our clients build better businesses by facilitating end-to-end trip request lifecycle management, generating powerful data and delivering insightful analytics.”