Sean Jacob: Tailwinds of transformation: How grounded dreams can teach us valuable lessons

Wicked Problems Podcast

In this episode, we dive into the incredible journey of Sean Jacob, whose impressive career spans across multiple sectors, from Defence to Commercial, Aviation to Finance, both in the UK and internationally. With an exceptional ability to bridge the gap between business strategy and technology, Sean has been the driving force behind numerous successful projects, programmes, and transformations. Sean’s career would be the envy of many, with roles as Vice President, Operations for L3 Commercial Training Services, Programme Director for the AA Group Plc, and senior-level leadership roles for high-profile organisations such as Unilever, Orange, nPower, O2, The World Bank, T-Mobile, and Compaq. When given the opportunity to invest in and manage a commercial flight school, Sean embraced it with open arms. After all, he had transformed the work processes and infrastructures of major organisations, worked with exciting start-ups, and even taken a company into the Sunday Times Fast Track 100. Enthusiastically, he set about bringing these skills to bear on a company that appeared to be doing well, had competent and enthusiastic people working for it, and would benefit from someone with considerable commercial experience taking the reins, helping the team work more effectively and creating a company set for success. But that’s not what happened… In this episode, we examine the intriguing story behind a slew of negative headlines in May 2023 following the collapse of Shoreham’s FTA flight school. As Steven Bartlett says, “FAILURE IS FEEDBACK, FEEDBACK IS KNOWLEDGE AND KNOWLEDGE IS POWER”. Don’t miss out on the insights and wisdom Sean has to share from his past successes and, yes, this one failure which contains salutary lessons for us all. LINKS: Sean speaking at Vistage Steven Bartlett on the power of Failure to teach us lessons