Rick Howell

Although he now hears regularly about concepts which do not require the presence of a rocket scientist, Rick’s tertiary education actually did qualify him to be exactly that. The majority of his career has been spent in the various and occasionally overlapping domains of aviation ranging from his time as a military pilot through airlines, large and small. His career in aviation has taken him from Australia, to the Middle East and into various parts of Asia in airlines including, QANTAS, Emirates, Virgin Australia and recently Cebu Pacific. With a CV that includes C-level and Board roles in the Operations, Risk and IT fields, Rick’s time has more recently been focussed in the areas of corporate risk, major asset evaluations and acquisitions, corporate emergency response, strategy and Corporate Governance.

Aside from the dominant aviation theme, Rick first engaged with IT in a professional manner as a Unix SysAdmin several years before the world was introduced to Linux. He has spent many years managing and optimising the interplay of information technology and safety sensitive operations. As modern airlines are increasingly multi-billion dollar e-commerce companies with aircraft, he has also been at the bleeding edge of the cybersecurity battle, sometimes winning, sometimes not. The upshot of that battle is that he also has some quite unwanted but illuminating experience in managing the regulatory and reputational aftermath of the sometimes not.

Rick has developed a morbid fascination with the ‘Risk Industry’. With multiple corporate scars, a reasonable memory and passable internet search skills, he has also developed a yet-to-be-overturned disrespect for many of its practitioners. Having recently discovered Agrippa’s Trilemma he now has a name to use when rallying against the folly of all forms of Root Cause Analysis. In pursuit of further Board level knowledge he attended the French business school INSEAD and gained certification in Corporate Governance through their International Directors’ Programme. He is currently based in Australia with a keen focus on the rapidly developing Asian markets where he consults and also sits on the Board of the innovative and unique cybersecurity company, Cyber Intelligence House.