Portside appoints Fred Powell, business aviation technology innovator, as VP Product

Wednesday 11th May 2022

Portside (Portside.aero) has recently extended  its leadership team, appointing Fred Powell, an aviation industry technology veteran, as VP of Product. Fred’s arrival will help drive Portside’s continued growth as the  company looks to expand  its product suite to address critical pain points facing business and government aircraft operators. Alek Vernitsky, CEO of Portside, said: “Fred has over 20 years of experience in this industry and has contributed significantly to the innovation in business aviation. We look forward to working with  Fred and leveraging his experience as we continue to better serve our global customer base.”

Portside has experienced triple digit growth since it was founded in 2017.  Today, its platform serves hundreds of customers in over 30 countries with a secure suite of cloud-based products such as the Owner Portal, ExpensePulse, Optimizer and others. Some notable operators on the Portside platform include Jet Aviation, Airshare, Wing Aviation, Albinati, and Metrojet. Excited about this next chapter at Portside, Fred  commented: “The Portside team is impressive and forward-thinking. I am excited to be working with a company whose customers are enthusiastic about what we have built and I look forward to helping Portside further support its customer needs.”

Fred's success in aviation technology was inspired by his father, Fred Powell Sr, who founded aviation software company Computing Technologies for Aviation (CTA) in 1981 and became the architect of Flight Operation System (FOS). After graduating from college, Fred joined the family business and rebuilt the DOS-based FOS system for Windows. At the time, flight schedules were written on whiteboards and airline operators were skeptical that a software program could be as customizable as a wipeable marker.

The legendary Neil Armstrong served as Chairman and CEO for CTA, actively supporting the family business for over 15 years. Under Fred’s leadership, FOS became the dominant solution for corporate, charter, and OEM-operations serving over 500 customers and capturing 80% market share for charter operators. FOS evolved to enable industry-leading end-to-end paperless processes for customers, including native mobile technology for flight departments to enter logbook information, duty times, and expenses.

CTA / FOS was sold to Rockwell Collins (now Collins Aerospace) in 2011 and Fred worked on integrating FOS with other Collins acquisitions, including Air Routing and ARINC. Joining Stellar Labs in 2015 as VP of Customer and Product, Fred managed products that enabled customers to generate an automated quote, a long sought-after goal in the charter industry.

Fred Powell, VP Product, Portside

About Portside

Portside is developing a modern, cloud-based operating system for business and government aviation: a set of integrated solutions addressing major industry pain points. The Portside platform supports over 150 operators of business jets, helicopters, industrial and government fleets, as well as fractional jet ownership programs in over 30 countries. Portside is headquartered in San Francisco with team members across the US, Europe and Asia.

Learn more about Portside at  www.portside.aero