Leading the Future of Aviation: Insights from Veronica Hull and Heather Figallo

Heather Figallo:

If I could change the name of it, I would replace the word inclusion with celebration. So it's like, I'm not just wanting to include you. I don't want to have the right 20 people in the room that you're just included. I want you to be celebrated and I want your ideas to be thoughtfully provoked.

Veronica Hull:

I've always put myself in a position of kind of servant leadership. So, my team are my biggest asset and allies. And so, the role particularly is to be able to provide an environment where people can perform and be at their best and deliver their full potential, but also create a safe environment where people feel comfortable in taking risks and extending. Because not everything is going to work.

Christine Calhoun:

I'm Christine Calhoun, studio lead with the Infosys Knowledge Institute. Today's conversation is part of our continued reflection around International Women's Day, a moment that reminds us progress happens not only through big milestones, but through everyday leadership. Across aviation and technology, women are leading teams, driving innovation, and opening doors for the next generation. Today, I'm joined by two inspiring leaders, Veronica Hull, CEO and Founder of the 30 Percent Group and Heather Figallo, former CTO of Vueling Airlines. Thank you both so much for being here today.

Christine Calhoun:

So every leader brings their own style. Heather, you've led large technology teams in aviation. How would you describe your approach to leadership, especially as technology continues to transform the industry?

Heather Figallo:

A couple of things, I think one just in general overall in leadership, I always try and be fair. I always try and be fair and balanced. And that is like so hard. It's really much more difficult than you think, you know, because sometimes there's the loudest voice in the room, which maybe has a better argument or whatever. And I think to take a step back and just say, we've got to be balanced here. And especially when you're managing an enterprise-wide portfolio of technology initiatives, right? Because you have to have a very fair and balanced way of looking at the initiatives and understanding, you know, this one might save money, but this one's going to improve customer experience. I can't tie a value to this. I have to whatever. So, I think to me, it's always about taking a step back and having this very, very fair and balanced view of what is the work that needs to get done? What are the priorities of the company kind of taking away or dissolving the people, right? And just seeing the initiatives and understanding what the technology problems can be solved, what problems can be solved through those technologies? And being very pragmatic, you know, I mean, it's very hard to pull the emotion out of the work because people are so passionate about the things that they're doing. And there's real value kind of in this very, very pragmatic approach and very simple approach that says, where do we add the most value? What do we need to do to move forward? Where do we need to prioritize our resources? And what can we do? How can we get the most with the least? With the least number of resources, with the least amount of effort, how can we get the most bang? Right? And so that's where this view of the enterprise, the enterprise portfolio is super important because one of the unique things about the roles that I've had in my career is that I have been able to see the entire organization. I'm always in these strategy or transformation roles where I see everything that's going on in the organization. Everyone else has a view from their own specific position. And so, I feel like for me and my role, the real leadership thing is to bring that fairness and that balance across the organization.

Christine Calhoun:

Veronica, from your experience working with leaders across industries, what leadership qualities do you see consistently making the biggest difference?

Veronica Hull:

I've always put myself in a position of kind of servant leadership. So, my team are my biggest asset and allies. And so, the role particularly is to be able to provide an environment where people can perform and be at their best and deliver their full potential, but also create a safe environment where people feel comfortable in taking risks and extending. Because not everything is going to work. So being in an environment where you provide both opportunities for people to be super developed in their thinking and to take risks, not from a perspective of safety, but in terms of trialing things and knowing when to finish projects when maybe they're not going in the right direction and having courage is super important because by doing that, that's how you allow the business and the people to grow.

In the end, if you're in a leadership position, you need to provide that environment that allows people to take those first steps but be there to help pick them up if things don't go the way they planned.

Christine Calhoun:

So we often hear organizations talk about diversity and inclusion, but real inclusion goes far beyond policies. What does true inclusion look like in practice inside teams and organizations? Veronica, let's start with you.

Veronica Hull:

The most important thing is it has to be tailored to the environment that you're operating in. So having statistics is great. Being able to measure them is even better. But it has to be about what you show up and do on a day-to-day basis. So many companies have good statements about how inclusive they are in the workplace. But then if you looked around the room, they're not operating in a way that makes that true. So things for me that really make sense are recognizing that people have different thinking styles, people have different operating styles and providing space for those to exist so you don't have a situation where it's just the higher person's opinion or the loudest person in the room. So something as simple as being in a team meeting and running things like, you know, temperature checks to see how people are feeling because obviously if you're not bringing your best self to work, you're not going to be able to deliver at your full potential. So just taking the time to do little things every day will ultimately bring a more inclusive workplace. And people will start to consider that maybe there is a different perspective here. And not just from a gender perspective, it's about culture. It's about people with kids, people without kids. Everybody has different impacts on kind of how they perform in the workplace. So being able to bring your full self to work for me is a demonstrative of a fully inclusive culture.

Christine Calhoun:

That’s great. Heather, can you share your experience as well?

Heather Figallo:

If I could change the name of it, I would replace the word inclusion with celebration. So it's like, I'm not just wanting to include you. I don't want to have the right 20 people in the room that you're just included. I want you to be celebrated and I want your ideas to be thoughtfully provoked. And so when I was little, and I'll tell you what influenced me a lot when my father worked for NASA and he was quite adamant about being a dreamer. And one of the things that he told me when I was young was, when you have an idea that no one else understands or you have a concept that nobody else is grasping, you were given that idea. I mean, it depends on like where you stand religiously or whatever.

God put that idea in your mind because you're the only one that can do it. When nobody understands what you're talking about, when nobody, that's good. That means this is your gift, right? And so I have come to really, really appreciate, I've been in rooms when I've given presentations about innovation or transformation or things that are very progressive because this is my role. And I can see people like kind of glaze over, you know, and that they don't understand me and I will tell them the story. I can see that you don't get me.

I can see that you don't get what I'm talking about. And you know why? It's because it's my gift. It's because it was put inside me because I'm the only person that can do it. And I hope one day you're going to come with an idea that only you understand because it's your gift. So it's made me listen to people in a different, more like celebrating way and not just, okay, we have the right 15 or 20 people in the room because we've checked the box that we have every role or every color, or every gender or whatever. No, we need to celebrate the way people think and we need to include what their ideas are and we need to appreciate that like sometimes an idea was put in somebody's mind because it's a dream that only they can accomplish and get out of your ego and sit back and listen and really celebrate what they're talking about, right? And so to me, like diversity is, you know, having all of the different right people in the room and whatever, and then you try and include it, but it's like, are you? Are you, like, where have you gotten to the point where you genuinely set your ego aside and say, I don't understand what you're talking about, or I kind of disagree what you're saying, but I want to hear you. I want to lead in, and I want us to talk to each other. To me, that's inclusion. When you have this, what I call like a magic team. The magic team that you've been on it and Veronica, I know you've been on one and maybe Christine, you've been on one too, where you just accomplished something that people said was impossible. That magic team is the inclusive team, is where they listen to everyone. They celebrate the differences. They understand this. Maybe not what I think, but I'm willing to listen. That to me is really inclusion.

Christine Calhoun:

If we look ahead to this time next year, what would meaningful progress for women in aviation look like? Heather, let's start with you.

Heather Figallo:

I think one year is too short of a time frame, to be honest. I think that this industry existed for over 100 years and was extremely male-dominated. I think that the executives in this industry, if you look at, you know, legacy airlines where people have a tenure on average or 25 or 30 years, these are men, right? Like, because of the nature of the industry 50, 40, 20 years ago. So we are seeing a lot of women in chief level positions in the airline and it makes a huge difference. But I think one year is too short of a time frame. I think we need to like have goals. I mean the evolution of the industry, the generational gaps, it's going to have to be five, 10, 15 years because the executives have to grow up with the knowledge. So what we should be focusing on right now is this middle level management pipeline. In the middle level management pipeline, you know, at the senior manager and director level, we need to be building women up. We need to be totally promoting, supporting, and sponsoring women in these lower levels. That's going to be the real shift that makes it stick in the industry.

The airline industry is complex. You have to grow up in this industry to be an executive. So what I think that we could do in one year is really, really focus on this middle management and these rising senior level women and really sponsor and support them.

Christine Calhoun:

Veronica, what are your thoughts on that?

Veronica Hull:

I think Heather's absolutely right. I heard a stat once that it's going to take 135 years in the UK specifically for there to be parity across compensation in the aviation industry. And that's just one country. So if you imagine you amplify that out. So as Heather said, the time that it's going to take to get there is not in my career lifetime, unfortunately, but hopefully for the girls behind me, can level that playing field. For me, it's about more than just committing to these goals. And we see it every year on everyone's board papers that they're, inclusive workplaces and we believe we can get there. It's more about the action. And as Heather says, the celebration and telling stories. So things like this, where we're out and about and explaining what it looks like, hoping that's resonating with more people. And as Heather described, the middle management pipeline is the leaders of the future. As Heather says, making a ceremonial appointment at the top level only lasts for the tenure of that particular person in that role. But building the pipeline will start to last forever. And that pipeline and flywheel, once you get it turning, it becomes much more self-fulfilling as well, because you then see more people talking about it and they then become passionate about it. And then it drives the flyball on. Well for me as a transformation person, that's just how we need to do it. So if I had to write a transformation plan for the airline industry it would start with diagnosing the problems, identifying solutions to how we would solve it, testing different strategies and bringing it forward. So I think to answer your question regarding in a year's time I just want to hope that the progress we've made so far isn't looked at as I'll tick the box we've done it, it's just the start of the flywheel. We need to keep pushing the flywheel onward.

Christine Calhoun:

Thank you both so much for sharing such thoughtful insights. Conversations like this remind us that progress is shaped through leadership, mentorship, and inclusive cultures. And those are exactly the forces helping shape the future of aviation. Thank you both so much for joining us. And as we like to say at the Knowledge Institute, keep learning and keep sharing.