London Luton Airport (LLA) is the UK’s fifth largest and pre Covid, the fastest growing airport, facilitating 18 million passenger journeys. Following its recovery from Covid, LLA is on an exciting journey in the coming years and is forecast to reach in excess of 32 million passengers per annum by 2050. To meet this rise in demand, over £160million in transformational capital works have recently concluded, including a newly expanded terminal that has doubled the retail space as well as additional car parking and taxiway expansions.

One of the next key phases of development across the airport is to enhance the IT capability, infrastructure and team. We were instructed  by the CFO and HRD to appoint a Head of IT, (the number one role in the department), which is a strategic, leadership role with responsibility for formulating, and then delivering the IT vision and strategy. This is viewed as a critical enabler in delivering the airports ambitious growth objectives.   

Our search process focused on identifying candidates who had significant experience of IT transformation within fast paced, growth environments. Experience of working within high volume, customer facing environments and nationally critical infrastructure was essential, as was the ability to lead teams and work within a complex stakeholder environment. Our proactive search process enabled us to present a shortlist of candidates from a range of critical industries, including, aviation, healthcare, infrastructure and communications. The successful candidate, Paul Ash had worked within the high pressure healthcare sector prior to and during the Covid pandemic so was highly skilled at working with dynamic, ever changing, critical infrastructure. He brought over fifteen years experience in IT transformation, people leadership and a deep understanding of working to an n+ level of criticality.