When the San Francisco Business Times was looking for the most admired CEO in the emerging growth category for its annual business awards, it skipped the plethora of technology and information companies within its circulation reach and tapped the aviation business. Paul Touw, CEO of XOJET was given the pivotal award at the publication’s annual awards ceremony in San Francisco last week. XOJET describes itself as the “world’s fastest growing aviation company” and it has the jet orders to prove it. By 2012, the company will have a fleet of 127 business jets and it’s not quite two years old.
Touw is credited with blending aviation expertise with “Silicon Valley ingenuity” to drive the meteoric growth of the company but he said it has more to do with the people who work there. “This award is not so much a reflection of my work as a CEO, but of the work of a group of fiercely-dedicated employees with a passion to change the private aviation industry,” said Touw. XOJET says it has 500 top executives, corporations and influential people, for whom private aircraft use is essential, as customers.
