FTI Consulting welcomes human capital-focused aviation team
FTI Consulting has bolstered its Aviation practice in Europe with the hire of a team of four consultants, who have joined the firm’s Amsterdam and London offices.
The new team brings 35 collective years of experience in aviation to the management consulting firm, gained both in industry (most recently at airport ground handler Swissport) and previously at consultancies Seabury Group and Accenture.
Part of the Business Transformation practice (which is part of the Corporate Finance & Restructuring segment), the new team will spearhead FTI Consulting’s human capital offering to clients in the aviation sector, working together with the firm’s other experts to provide a multidisciplinary offering across transformation, deals, and restructuring.
Spearheading the team is Jasper Schrijver, appointed a Senior Managing Director in Amsterdam. He has more than 15 years of experience in human capital and transformation programmes within aviation, its related industries and other labour-intensive businesses. Schrijver specialises in operating model design and implementation, workforce productivity and cost optimisation, union negotiations for collective labour agreements, HR due diligence during M&A, and turnaround planning.
Prior to FTI Consulting, Schrijver was a Senior Vice President Transformation at Swissport, an airport handler with revenues of over €3 billion, where he played a lead role in the company’s multi-year transformation and turnaround agenda since its bailout at the height of the Covid-19 pandemic.
Before that, he was a Managing Director at Accenture, where he led the Workforce Excellence offering for the Travel practice, and a Vice President at Seabury Group (which was acquired by Accenture in 2017).
It was at Seabury Group where Schrijver met Christopher Jacobi and Elena Zhiguleva – they both joined him in the move to Swissport in 2021. At FTI Consulting, Jacobi has been appointed at Senior Director, based in London, while Zhiguleva has been installed as a Director, operating out of Amsterdam.
Meanwhile, Vikashini Kumar joined the trio at Accenture, where she worked in the firm’s Human Capital team within the Aviation practice. She too crossed to Swissport two years ago, and now joins the cross to FTI Consulting.
“Our four new team members bring a keen understanding of the big shifts that are happening in the aviation sector, which will be of huge value to clients,” said Diederick van der Plas, a Senior Managing Director at FTI Consulting and EMEA Head of the Corporate Finance & Restructuring segment.
Klaas Wagenaar, a Senior Managing Director and Head of Corporate Finance & Restructuring in the Benelux region added: “Jasper and the team bring exceptional experience and relationships from the human capital and aviation industry, and they will strengthen our footprint in this area for clients in the region and beyond.”
FTI Consulting launched in the Netherlands late 2021 through the acquisition of local player BOLD. The firm recently moved to a new and larger office in Amsterdam to accommodate its growth in the country.