Mr Franke has been Chairman of Wizz Air since 2004. The Chairman’s role is to lead the Board and ensure that it operates effectively. Mr Franke is the founder and managing partner of Indigo Partners LLC, a private equity fund focused on air transportation. He is currently chairman of Frontier Airlines, Inc, a United States airline, JetSMART SpA, a Chilean airline, EnerJet, a Canadian start-up airline, APiJET LLC, a software company focused on providing real-time cost saving analytics to airlines, and currently serves on the board of directors of Concesionaria Vuela Compania de Aviacion, S.A. de C.V., a Mexican airline that does business as Volaris. 1998 to 2001, Mr Franke was a managing partner of Newbridge Latin America, a private equity fund focused on Latin America. Mr Franke was the chairman and chief executive officer of America West Airlines from 1993 to 2001. He served as chairman of Spirit Airlines Inc., a United States airline, from 2006 to 2013 and Tiger Aviation Pte. Ltd, a Singapore-based airline, from 2004 to 2009, and held directorships in Alpargatas S.A.I.C., an Argentina-based footwear and textiles manufacturer, from 1996 to 2007, and Phelps Dodge Corporation, a mining company, where he served as the lead outside director for several years, from 1980 to 2007. He has in the past served on a number of publicly listed company boards of directors including ON Semiconductor, Valley National Corporation, Southwest Forest Industries and the Circle K Corporation.
Mr Franke has both undergraduate and law degrees from Stanford University and an honorary PhD from Northern Arizona University. Mr Franke was the 2019 recipient of the Excellence in Leadership Award at the 45th ATW Airline Industry Achievement Awards.
