15 minutes with: Carlos Ozores

How would you describe your role to someone who perhaps wasn’t familiar with your area of work?

I think it depends on who I was speaking with. When my family asks me what I do, I tell them I’m a therapist for business executives, and the goal is really to help them improve their company’s performance. It’s hard to describe because PA is unlike any other consultancy: we combine advisory, digital engineering, and technology development under one roof, which gives us the unique ability to help clients turn their ideas into reality. And then you layer in Jacobs’ strong technical engineering capability. Nobody else can go from concept to concrete to code like PA and Jacobs can.

If I was explaining my role to somebody with a business background, I’d say that we help organizations to define, refine, and execute their strategies, with a strong emphasis on leveraging digital technologies and innovation. Understanding how to effectively leverage digital and data is a priority for my aviation clients. So, here, we help airports and airlines with end-to-end advisory from developing their digital strategy, and identifying digital and data use cases, all the way to developing and helping implement the end solution. We can develop the tools they will use or help them to identify the requirements so that they can then go out and procure those tools. Our support does not end at the advisory stage. We help that strategy become real and deliver meaningful value to the business, whether it’s to enhance customer experience, improve operating efficiency, strengthen cyber resilience, etc.

What makes PA different?

When I joined PA, what sold me through the interview process – and turned out to be true – is the quality of the people. It’s this combination of deep expertise and passion, but people are also collaborative and nice. It’s also an organization that values diversity and honors each person’s individuality. I’ve already had one-on-ones with over 130 PA team members and have found this to be consistent. People here just love what they do. They all show that predisposition to work together, to be helpful, and they’re just nice to work with. This makes coming to work each day fun! And clients see that expertise and passion, and the personable nature of the team.

What are the biggest challenges that your clients are facing right now, and how are you helping them to solve them?

It would be presumptuous to think that we know all of our clients’ problems. We understand the aviation industry and its pressing challenges, but until you’re inside an organization, you don't really know what their specific priorities are. Our client’s strategic objectives are generally consistent: how to delight customers, drive efficiency, improve resilience, etc. The challenges can lie in having a clear plan to deliver against those objectives, or being able to successfully leverage your people, processes, tools and data. It all sounds simple, but it’s not – and that’s where our expertise comes in.

Aviation tends to be a conservative and risk-averse industry, and leaders vary in the degrees to which they, one, understand the need for change, and, two, embrace the change. From the outside looking in, it’s easy to see what’s broken and say, hey, you need to change. But that decision has to come from within. It comes back to the therapy analogy that I mentioned earlier.

The digital revolution that we’re all living through is a blessing in a way because it’s creating a way to leverage data to get more out of your asset, understand your customers better, and drive productivity. But at the same time, this creates risks that organizations didn’t have before. We’ve had some severe IT shutdowns or cyber security attacks. How do you juggle these challenges? You need to evolve – and there’s some reticence to that, so that’s a challenge.

How you solve the reticence challenge really depends on the organization, their leadership, and their maturity or awareness level. We have solutions that are suited to those different states of mind. PA’s approach of “think big, start small, scale fast” resonates with clients, allows us to come in small and demonstrate value quickly to gain client buy-in, which then facilitates expanding the scope of the relationship. This is particularly powerful as we seek to grow in new markets where clients are unfamiliar with the PA brand. It also lends itself naturally to digital and data related solutions, where you can go from an idea to a proof of concept quickly.

What are the biggest trends you are seeing in aviation?

Every day, we’re constantly plugged into our digital devices. Data is ubiquitous, and organizations know that they need to accelerate the adoption of digital solutions, but they don’t always appreciate the why or the how. Data and technology are not the solution, they’re a means to an end. We have a very compelling, intelligent airports proposition that is quite broad, but even when I talk to clients about things like asset management, there’s a data element there, and there’s also a technological element that helps to bring about a better outcome and overcome some of the challenges that organizations have. Data and technology is transversal. It infuses into almost everything. Fortunately, PA – together with Jacobs – can credibly cover every step along a client’s digital journey.

In your work with clients, what strategies or shifts have had the biggest impact?

I led the enterprise strategic planning for a major US airport. The enterprise strategy was looking at the overall strategy for the enterprise, identifying their goals, KPIs, and targets. Initially, it included a ‘review and revise’ of their mission and vision statements, and of their values.

I was really blown away by how the purpose statement both tied together but also justified the organization’s goals. For example, sustainability is often an aspiration, but when you actually look at dollars and cents, you start to cut sustainability initiatives. By having a purpose that aligned with sustainability objectives as well as the financial, people, operational, and customer experience elements, all of these strategic goals existed on the same plane. The organization rallied around the purpose, made it their own, and gave coherence to the overall strategy. It definitely made me a believer in the power of a strong, authentic purpose statement to harness the collective ability of an organization.

What advice would you give to somebody who wanted to get involved in the work that you do and have the impact that you have?

You need to be a self-starter, have initiative, be analytical, enjoy working with people, enjoy solving problems, and not mind each day being different from the last. Oh, and you should like travelling. A lot and on short notice. If this sounds good to you, then consulting may be the right fit.

Aviation is an industry that people can relate to. Many people have spent time in airports and airlines, and so they understand what aviation unlocks in terms of new experiences. For consulting in general, though, the unique characteristics of problem-solving, working with people, variety, and travel are the prerequisites.

What are your future goals, professionally or otherwise?

I’m giving 100 percent to my professional goal right now. I joined PA with a remit to build the US transportation business in aviation. It’s a significant opportunity for really strong collaboration and synergies with our strategic partner Jacobs. We’ve already made strong progress, adding two new members to the US transport team focused on aviation, building a robust pipeline, and winning two major bids with Jacobs.

One is for the program management of a new car rental facility and common transportation system at a top 10 US airport, and another is to help a top 10 US airport develop its artificial intelligence and machine learning capability. In the first instance, PA brings its expertise standing up major programs for success; enhancing customer experience; and exploring innovative solutions to the common transport system challenge. In the second, the client was sold on our demonstrated approach to deliver real-world AI use cases at some of the world’s busiest airports.

What are you looking forward to right now?

Don't worry, I have a life outside of work – if you’re ever in LA and would like to go sailing, just give me a heads up! But work excites me. It’s an exciting time for the aviation industry. We have relevant and differentiated solutions, and we have a very strong partner in Jacobs.