József Váradi, Chief Executive Officer
Mr Váradi was one of the founders of Wizz Air in 2003. Mr Váradi worked at Procter and Gamble for ten years between 1991 and 2001, and became Sales Director for Global Customers where he was responsible for major clients throughout 11 EU countries. He then joined Malév Hungarian Airlines, the Hungarian state airline, as Chief Commercial Officer in 2001, before serving as its Chief Executive Officer from 2001 to 2003. He has also held board memberships with companies such as Lufthansa Technik Budapest (Supervisory Board, 2001-2003), Mandala Airlines (Board of Commissioners, 2007-2011), JetSMART (Board of Directors 2018 – to date). In 2007, Mr Váradi won the EY Hungary “Brave Innovator” award and became the EY “Entrepreneur of the Year” in 2018. Mr Váradi holds a Master’s degree in Economics from the Budapest University of Economic Sciences and a Master of Laws Degree from the University of London.
Stephen Jones, Deputy CEO and Managing Director Wizz Air Hungary
Mr. Jones joined Wizz Air in October 2017 as Executive Vice President and Deputy Chief Executive Officer and was appointed Managing Director of Wizz Air Hungary as of 1 January 2019 assuming responsibility for the whole of Wizz Air Hungary. Mr Jones, who is a national of both New Zealand and the United Kingdom, joined Wizz Air after spending 16 years at Air New Zealand where he held a variety of operational and commercial roles. Most recently Mr Jones was Chief Strategy, Network and Alliances Officer at Air New Zealand during which time he was responsible for the airline's overall corporate strategy, network development, alliances and sustainability. He oversaw the airline's tightly cost-managed response to significant domestic competition from low cost carriers as well as the development and implementation of Air New Zealand’s revenue-share alliance strategy. Prior to this role, Mr Jones held a number of other roles in Air New Zealand including General Manager of their low cost carrier Freedom Air, General Manager of the airline's domestic business unit and Tasman and Pacific Islands business unit as well as General Manager of Investor Relations and Financial Planning, following the airline's recapitalization in 2003. He also served as Chairman of the Star Alliance Management Board and the Star Alliance Strategy Committee.
George Michalopoulos, Chief Commercial Officer
Mr. Michalopoulos joined Wizz Air in 2010 as Head of Pricing and Revenue Management and was then promoted to Head of Network Development, Scheduling and Sales in May 2015. Prior to WIZZ, Mr. Michalopoulos, 35, built an extensive commercial and revenue management career at Flybaboo and Blu-Express. Mr. Michalopoulos is a Swiss, British and Greek citizen and holds both Bachelor and Master of Science degrees in Management Science and Engineering from Stanford University.
Diederik Pen, Executive Vice President & Group Chief Operations Officer
Mr Pen joined Wizz Air in January 2013, becoming Chief Operations Officer and Accountable Manager in September 2013. As of 1 April 2017 Mr Pen was appointed Executive Vice President & Chief Operations Officer. He was formerly the Chief Executive Officer and Chief Operating Officer of Martinair Holland. Prior to joining Martinair Holland in 2006, Mr Pen worked for Virgin Blue Airlines in Australia from 2002 to 2006 as Head of Ground Operations, for Brisbane Airport Corporation in Australia as General Manager of Commercial Services and for Amsterdam Airport Schiphol as Manager of Commercial Services. Mr Pen has a Master of Business Administration in Business Economics from the University of Amsterdam.
András Sebők, Chief Supply Chain Officer
Mr. Sebők was one of the first employees of Wizz Air, joining in 2004 as Head of Treasury and Controlling and spending 15 years building an extensive career with the airline, overseeing various financial functions as Treasury, Financial Planning and Controlling, Fleet Acquisition and Corporate Finance. Mr. Sebők was promoted to Chief Supply Chain Officer with effect from 1 April 2019 responsible for fleet acquisition, airport development, purchasing and facility management. Before joining WIZZ Mr. Sebők worked in various positions in finance including being the CFO of Aeroplex Central Europe. Mr. Sebők is Hungarian and holds a degree in Banking, Corporate Finance and Securities Law from Eötvös Loránd University.
Owain Jones, Managing Director Wizz Air UK
Mr Jones joined Wizz Air as General Counsel in September 2010 and was promoted to Chief Corporate Officer in June 2014 before becoming the Managing Director Wizz Air UK in September 2018. Mr Jones is a Solicitor of the Senior Courts of England and Wales. Having trained at Nicholson Graham and Jones(1994 to 1996), Mr Jones joined Wilde Sapte (now Dentons LLP) in 1996 as a solicitor in its aviation group, specialising in finance and regulatory matters. He spent time in the firm’s Paris and Hong Kong offices before being appointed a partner in 2006, following which he spent three years in the firm’s Abu Dhabi office, becoming acting Managing Partner of the office. He left the firm in 2009 to spend 18 months training for a frozen air transport pilot’s licence with CTC Aviation Training. Mr Jones holds a Bachelor of Laws degree from University College London.
Johan Eidhagen, Chief Marketing and People Officer
Mr. Eidhagen joined Wizz Air in January 2015 as Head of Brand and Marketing, became Chief Marketing Officer on 1 February 2016 and was named Chief Marketing and People Officer on 1 April 2019. In his role Mr. Eidhagen oversees Marketing and Communications, Customer Experience, Retail and HR functions. Before joining WIZZ Mr. Eidhagen built an extensive sales and marketing career at Nokia, holding several senior global and regional marketing positions. He joined Nokia in 1998 from a background in retail and was head of marketing for the Nordic region until 2004 when he moved to Nokia HQ in Finland to run global marketing services for the entertainment category. Between 2005 and 2007 he was based in New York as the Director of Marketing for Nokia Multimedia in North America before returning to Finland where he was Director and Head of Marketing for the Nokia Nseries Category. In 2009 he became Country manager for Nokia in Sweden and was appointed as Managing Director for the Scandinavian region in 2011. Mr. Eidhagen is a native of Stockholm and is a DIHM Marketing graduate from the IHM Business School in Stockholm.
Iain Wetherall, Chief Financial Officer
Iain Wetherall joined Wizz Air in July 2011 as Head of Corporate Finance and, following the Company's initial public offering in 2015, he also led the Company's investor relations function before taking on the Head of Financial Planning and Control and Investor Relations in September 2016. Mr. Wetherall was promoted to Chief Financial Officer with effect from 01 August 2017 responsible for the accounting and tax, as well as financial planning and controlling. He is a chartered accountant, holds an Advanced Treasury Diploma from the Association of Corporate Treasurers, a Securities and Investment Diploma from the Chartered Institute for Securities and Investments and was a Securities Representative authorized by the Securities and Futures Authority (now Financial Conduct Authority). Prior to Wizz Air, Mr. Wetherall gained experience in tax and treasury, corporate finance, mergers and acquisitions, accounting, audit, corporate governance, internal control and consulting in various finance roles for Royal Ahold, PricewaterhouseCoopers, KPMG and Singer and Friedlander Bank Limited.
Heiko Holm, Chief Operations Officer, Wizz Air Hungary
Mr. Holm joined Wizz Air in 2015 as Head of Technical Services. Mr. Holm graduated from the University of Applied Sciences in Hamburg, Germany as an Engineer specialized in Aircraft Construction and Design and went on to build a successful career with Lufthansa Technik, ultimately becoming the Director of Operations for Lufthansa Technik in Shenzhen, China, from where he joined Wizz Air.
Joel Goldberg, Chief Digital Officer
Mr. Goldberg joined Wizz Air in October 2018 as Chief Digital Officer, a newly created position. Mr. Goldberg is responsible for Wizz Air’s E-commerce, Data Analytics and Automation, IT Innovation and IT Infrastructure and Services functions reporting to the company’s Deputy Chief Executive Officer. Mr. Goldberg was formerly Senior Director Technology, Europe for Nike. Prior to this role, Mr. Goldberg worked in executive IT roles at various multinational companies including G4S, APMaersk and DHL Express.
Marion Geoffroy, Chief Corporate Officer
Ms. Geoffroy joined Wizz Air as Head of Legal and General Counsel in March 2015. Between 2000 and 2011, Ms. Geoffroy held senior leadership roles in the Legal department of Air France-KLM. In 2011, she joined Verlingue Insurance Brokers where she served as General Counsel for 4 years. She was appointed Chief Corporate Officer of Wizz Air in September 2018 overseeing the Legal, Data Protection and Health and Safety departments and also assumes the responsibility of Corporate Secretary. Ms. Geoffroy holds a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from Paris XI University (France), a Lawyer-Linguist Master from ISIT (Paris, France), a law degree from Philipps University (Marburg, Germany) and a Master of Laws (LL.M.) from McGill University Institute of Air and Space Law (Montreal, Canada).
