MERLIN & ASSOCIATES
BOB WARD - CEO
 Bob Ward has been involved in aviation for more than 50 years, beginning when he became a Rolls-Royce University Apprentice in 1961.
After graduating in Mechanical Engineering from Leeds University in England in 1965, Bob spent the next 23 years with Rolls-Royce in a career spanning engine development, flight test (including stints at Edwards AFB, USA and Nagoya and Gifu, Japan), programme management (RB211 at Lockheed, CA) and sales/marketing, culminating in his appointment as Vice President, Civil Engine Sales for North America, Central America, Mexico and the Caribbean. He left Rolls-Royce to join Polaris Aircraft Leasing as Vice President International in 1987 with responsibility for Asia and Latin American sales. After the amalgamation of Polaris and GPA into GECAS (GE Capital Aviation Services) he was appointed Senior VP Marketing and Managing Director for GECAS (Asia Pacific) in Hong Kong. During the eight years at Polaris/GECAS he lead a team of professionals, which in twenty-nine separate transactions bought, sold or leased fifty-eight aircraft with a value in excess of $1.6 billion. Bob left GECAS in 1995 to establish MERLIN. MERLIN is a Hong Kong registered aviation consultancy and has been retained long term and worked as a consultant for a variety of clients including Citibank Global Aviation, WLFC, ELFC and Sumitomo Corporation. Merlin has also acted as advisor to a number of airlines (including recently, Skymark and Nok Air). Bob is a Member of the Institution of Mechanical Engineers (UK) and a Chartered Engineer. He is also a member of ISTAT (the International Society of Transport Aircraft Traders). Within MERLIN, Bob is primarily involved in aircraft and spare engine purchasing and leasing on behalf of clients as well as consulting for airlines. . |
 Tip worked for Nok Airlines PCL for more than 11 years in a variety of functions. She has gained a broad perspective of both the commercial and operational aspects of airlines.
Tip joined Nok Airlines in 2007 and started her Airlines career as Assistant to the Chief Operating Officer (COO) which gave her knowledge on the top-level policy, connections within the organisation and most importantly helped her learn the fundamentals of the Airline business.
After 3 years of being an assistant to the COO, she was transferred to manage Procurement and Administration, where she reorganised the function and implemented new processes as well as a system to enhance efficiency of the function. Also, she was selected to be one of the team to organise and prepare the company for its IPO in 2014. In 2013 she was assigned to take over and manage the Charter business for Nok Air. During the next 4 years she increased the value of the charter business from 2% of total revenue in year 2013 to 30% of total revenue in year 2017, and increase from 4 China routes (4 cities) in 2013 to 24 routes (17 cities) in 2017. She also lead the team to successfully open a new operations base in Utapao (UTP) in less than 3 months to support the growth of the China charter business. In 2016, she was promoted to VP, Sales and International business. Her main responsibility was to achieve the sales target set for both Domestic and International Flights (which includes charter business) as well as open new International routes. Under her supervision her team successfully registered Nok Airlines in Myanmar, Vietnam and China for scheduled flights operation and in addition Nok was successfully connected to OTAs, through which sales grew by 200% from 2016. Using various tactics in managing the sales operation, sales of B2B increased from 20% to 40% in 2017. In 2018, she was transferred to develop Ancillary Revenue, and successfully converted 80% of the old stocks to revenue. Also, in close coordination with the revenue team she implemented actions so that ancillary revenues could complement the total revenue of the airline. Tip left Nok Airlines in January 2019 to join Merlin where she can add her experience and expertise to develop additional products for the company. . |
