Tony Fernandes
Tony Fernandes
Tan Sri Anthony Francis "Tony" Fernandes, CBEis a Malaysian entrepreneur. He is the founder of Tune Air Sdn. Bhd., who introduced the first budget no-frills airline, AirAsia, to Malaysians with the tagline "Now everyone can fly". Fernandes managed to turn AirAsia, a failing government-linked commercial airline, into a highly successful budget airline public-listed company. He has since founded the Tune Group of companies...
NationalityMalaysian
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth30 April 1964
CityKuala Lumpur, Malaysia
CountryMalaysia
Good leadership is to know when to go, and you only succeed as a good leader if you've transported someone else in and the company gets stronger. Then you've succeeded as leader.
In AirAsia, we consider ourselves basically a dream factory. We deliberately decided that we wanted a company where people can pursue their passion, and we wanted to make use of all the talent that we have in-house.
I look for people who have drive, who have ambition, who are humble. I've hired many people at very strange places.
My whole life's been stability. People who have worked with me have for a long time. Air Asia is the same people who started it.
If you have a great product but no one knows about it, it's history.
I don't care about failing because I do not want to sit down in my older years and say, 'How come I didn't try?'
The music and airlines businesses are tough, but I've been successful in them.
I think airlines have been very much parrots. They'll just follow what everyone else is doing. Why change a model that they're happy in? And it takes someone like myself or Richard Branson who comes from outside the industry to say, 'Hey, let's try something new.'
I've lived in Jakarta and have seen a lot more by living here, and I understand that there's so much more to Indonesia than just Bali and Jakarta.
When the music business failed to embrace the Internet, I thought it was game, set and match for the industry, and I quit.
Don't kid yourself that anyone in the Premier League is going to do you any favours.
I came from the music business, which reputedly has the biggest egos, but I really think the airline world caps it.
I don't know if every player in the Premier League feels hurt when they lose a game. The right sort is very important. I was naive in thinking that everyone was like me.
The pilots cannot get over the fact that I have a cup of coffee with the guys who carry the bags. My secretary will (even) go out and help clean the planes if we are running into a delay.