Contact: Jim Aisner, jaisner@hbs.edu (617) 495-6157
Harvard Business School Communications
David Neeleman and Stelios Haji-Ioannou Among Keynotes at Entrepreneurship Conference
BOSTON -- Two high-flying entrepreneurs were among a bevy of distinguished keynote speakers at the Harvard Business School Entrepreneurship Club’s twentieth annual conference on the HBS campus today.
Self-described “serial entrepreneurs” David Neeleman, founder and CEO of JetBlue Airways Corporation, and Stelios Haji-Ioannou, founder of low-cost European carrier easyJet, regaled an appreciative audience of students, practitioners, and fellow and would-be entrepreneurs with perspectives on their companies and advice for those eager to follow in their footsteps.
Haji-Ioannou began his entrepreneurial adventures at the age of 25 in 1992, when, with the help of his father, he started a shipping company called Stelmar Tankers that now has a market capitalization on the New York Stock Exchange of $500 million. Three years later, seizing an opportunity to take advantage of the deregulation of the European airline industry, he founded easyJet, an operation with a fleet of 80 aircraft and a market cap on the London Stock Exchange of some $2 billion. “I believe my strength is to find an idea, risk my own capital, work the long hours away from the spotlight of a publicly traded company, and make something happen,” said Haji-Ioannou.
Neeleman’s string of previous successes includes Morris Air, a low-cost carrier he cofounded in 1984 and sold to Southwest Airlines nine years later; a software company called Open Skies that specialized in reservation systems, and West Jet, a Canadian airline with bargain-basement fares that returned $22 million on his $142,000 investment. But money isn’t what drives real entrepreneurs, Neeleman cautioned. “They need to be totally focused, totally obsessed with something,” he said. “If you’re not, don’t start a company.”
Both speakers emphasized the importance of others in their companies’ performance. “My success largely depends on the people I find to work for me,” said Haji-Ioannou. Neeleman’s formula for success is a combination of “best product, lowest cost, and the most amount of capital for our size in the industry.” But beyond that, he asserted, if you’re in the service business, “you have to hire the best people, train them well, and take good care of them.”
The sky’s the limit as Hahi-Ioannou and Neeleman look ahead. Having installed an experienced management team at easyJet, Hai-Ioannou now concentrates on extending the “easy” brand to a broad array of other ventures, from a pizza delivery service to a cruise line. By year’s end, Neeleman plans to expand JetBlue’s fleet from 57 airplanes to 69; by 2011, he wants 290 jets to carry the JetBlue logo.
For both these entrepreneurs, creating companies that are built to last is clearly their passion.