OUR PEOPLE

GIULIO LEUCCI

Founder and Owner

Giulio Leucci has two decades of experience spanning infrastructure development and portfolio management/acquisition for public and private infrastructure in North America and Europe.  An executive and industry expert, he is an internationally recognised figure in infrastructure executive management and advisory.

 

Currently senior executive in private equity funds, Mr. Leucci leads origination, execution and asset management of infrastructure assets on the international market.  Hermes’s clients rely on his comprehensive knowledge and deep experience of the infrastructure sector, including executive management, risk analysis, organisational design, change management, financing/re-financing, commercial development, CAPEX/OPEX management and all-around value creation. 

 

During his distinguished career, Mr. Leucci has acquired and developed acclaimed large airport, rail, toll road and energy assets.  As CEO and Asset Manager he has also driven commercial strategies that generated high ROI, process re-engineering programs that generated up to 20% better service levels, higher productivity and lower operating costs while enhancing the reputation, quality and value proposition of companies; led turnaround strategies for infrastructure companies; and negotiated complex legal, governance, commercial and financial matters.

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Educated in the U.K., Switzerland and Italy, Mr. Leucci holds an MBA degree, an MA in Architecture as well as a Diploma of Non-Executive Director. 

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AARON HEGER​

Senior Consultant

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Aaron began his career in London in 2005 with investment bank ABN AMRO and subsequently RBS where he was part of both firms’ infrastructure and transportation corporate finance teams.  In 2013 he was part of the founding team of infrastructure corporate finance firm Hillbrook Partners and in 2015 joined Manchester Airports Group in a senior strategy position where he worked on the development of the Group’s international business (MAG-USA), lounge strategy, food and beverage strategy, car parking strategy, customer experience strategy and a range of corporate cost savings initiatives.  He has worked with Hermes since 2018. 

 

During Aaron’s time in finance his airport transaction experience included working with BAA on the sale of London Gatwick Airport to GIP in 2008, advisory to the Spanish Government on the privatisation of Madrid-Barajas and Barcelona airports, buy-side advisory to AMP Capital on the acquisition of Newcastle Airport, buy-side advisory for an infrastructure fund on the acquisition of London Stansted Airport, buy-side advisory to Canadian investor PSP on its acquisition of Hochtief Airports (now AviAlliance) and sell-side advisory to Macquarie on the sale of Bristol Airport to OTPP.  Non-airport transaction experience included sell-side advisory to Babcock & Brown on the sale of PD Ports, advisory to the Danish Ministry of Finance on equity capital raising by Scandinavian Airlines, valuation opinion on the ground handling joint venture between TAV Airports and Turkish Airlines, sell-side advisory to Istithmar on the sale of Inchcape Shipping Serivces and buy-side advisory for a French mass transit operator on the acquisition of a London bus operator.

 

His broader finance experience includes transport equity research secondments, numerous market studies, strategy assignments and valuation reports for clients spanning the transportation sector including aviation services, airlines, ferries, container shipping, ports, logistics, bus and rail. 

 

Educated in the U.S.A. and U.K., he holds a BSc in Management from the London School of Economics. 

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THUSHAN DIAS

Consultant

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Thushan has 14 years of experience and has helped infrastrucure develop their capital development plans, optimise their existing assets and develop strategies that benefit airport operator, airlines ultimately, passengers.

 

He began his career in 2006 with LeighFisher, an infrastructure advisory firm, where his services were retained by Heathrow airport for 8 years. During this period, he worked on a portfolio to optimise the development and delivery of over 30 projects using business and operational simulation tools. Key projects include; leading the capacity assurance of Heathrow Terminal 2, rectifying T5’s tracked transit strategy and optimisation of the campus-wide airline relocation programme. These projects enhanced the airport’s capacity, revenue generation, transforming its ASQ scores and public perception. 

 

In 2014, Thushan set up an independent consultancy to take his experience and apply it outside of the UK. Under this venture, he created capital development plans for New Istanbul airport, Jorge Chavez T2 in Lima and 14 airports on behalf of Fraport. In 2016, he was retained by Manchester Airport Group for 4 years to work with development teams on transformation projects for Manchester and Stansted airport to increase each airport’s capacity by 20 million passengers. He ultimately became part of MAG’s business change unit where his key projects included development of Manchester airport’s airline relocation strategy, assurance of Stansted’s CAPEX plan and development of a 460pax/hr security lane concept and trial.

 

Thushan holds both a BSc and MSc from University College London in Architecture, Planning and Environmental Studies. 

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Oana Damian

Senior Commercial Expert

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Oana has over ten years’ experience in providing technical advisory to airport operators, government and financial institutions on airport privatizations/ PPPs, stake acquisitions, airport infrastructure debt financing, and airport terminal developments, with expertise in non-aeronautical revenue analysis & forecasting, commercial due diligence, business plan review, benchmarking, commercial planning and airport land development. Having been the lead commercial advisor and key member of on-site teams across various airport transaction projects globally, including sell-side on the Brazilian airport privatizations, Oana performed commercial revenue due diligence on over US$24bn of successful airport transactions in Europe, Latin America and the United States between 2012 and 2013 alone, while at Jacobs/LeighFisher. From 2018 to present, Oana has performed due diligence and selectively airport concession planning on 15 different airports, in Asia-Pacific, South America and the Caribbean. 

Outside the airport space, Oana has provided commercial advisory on the ONRoute service stations network sale in Ontario, Canada, and this year has led the next generation retail stream on a large transportation hub repurposing effort in the USA.  

Oana has experience of working and living in London, New York, Brazil, Spain, Ecuador, speaks six languages, and holds an MBA degree obtained in Spain. Oana regularly speaks at airport industry and technology/travel conferences, and co-authored the TRB publication "Understanding the Value of Social Media at Airports for Customer Engagement".

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Muriel Zingraff

Senior Commercial Expert

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Muriel has over 30 years’ experience in Retail and Travel Retail, having worked at board level for various renowned brands such as L’Oréal and Harrods, and as Retail Concessions Director at London Heathrow Airport.

With in-depth expertise in Retail, Travel Retail and E-commerce and more importantly the strategic experience of creating powerful synergies within these channels through social and digital. Muriel has a breadth of contacts in all brand categories from Luxury to F&B which led to being headhunted by Heathrow Airport to develop and implement a game changing retail strategy to deliver increased level of growth in all terminals and deliver the new Terminal 2. 

A successful track record of a different approaches to businesses, a customer focused forward thinker, anticipating future direction and movement of markets to ensure revenue opportunities are identified early and resourced effectively to assure shareholder value.

While at Heathrow, Muriel has developed the Retail Vision (RV), a sophisticated methodology capable of future-proofing businesses. RV combines in-depth business intelligence, derived from proprietary modelling of Data analytics, with 30+ years of market knowledge and hands-on retail experience, merged with international and local insights. 

At Heathrow, RV facilitated a £200m increase in retail sales in 2013, delivering EBIT growth of 8%. It also underpinned Terminal 2's retail success, boosting profit by £9m p.a. and was subsequently implemented at smaller airports, e.g., London City Airport. Retail Vision has proven to be an enduring, flexible tool which delivers highly detailed planning capability within diverse retail environments.

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Chris Pickard

Energy Decarbonisation and ESG Consultant

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Chris has over 30 years of experience in airport and infrastructure planning. He is also passionate about sustainability and the need for aviation and other transport sectors to decarbonise. Experience has been gained both as a consultant and as an airport operator. 

In his most recent role, for the UK Aerospace Technology Institute’s FlyZero programme, Chris led studies into the airport infrastructure required to supply liquid hydrogen for the operation of zero-emission aircraft. 

For nearly fifteen years, Chris worked for both Gatwick and Heathrow Airports in various roles. His most recent role was as the Head of Capacity for Heathrow, responsible for capacity planning projects, ranging from seasonal operational planning to strategic master planning. Chris also held other roles at Gatwick and Heathrow, including Commercial Planning Manager, Operational Capacity Manager and Operational Research Analyst. 

Before working for Heathrow and Gatwick, Chris worked as a consultant for Mott MacDonald and Jacobs. Chris has also worked directly for IATA, Dublin Airport, Virgin Atlantic and Delta Airlines, and on a range of other airport planning projects in conjunction with consultancies including Arup, Mott MacDonald, Jacobs and AiQ. 

Chris is experienced in facility planning, strategic capacity planning, capacity optimisation, simulation modelling, aircraft stand and gate planning, airport slot management, master planning, planning standards and demand versus capacity management, ESG and decarbonisation strategies.

Chris holds a master’s degree in Sustainability and a master’s degree in Airport Planning and Management. He also holds a bachelor’s degree in Civil Engineering. 

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Ian Woods

Senior Planning, Operations and Capacity  Consultant

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Ian has over 4 decades experience in Aviation and Transportation planning, management, business development and strategy with both public sector and private sector operators. Ian has been involved in or led major infrastructure optimization strategies, asset development plans, and project delivery efforts exceeding $ 4B in value.  

 

Ian began his career in 1981 with Transport Canada at Toronto International Airport. Ian transitioned to the Greater Toronto Airports Authority (GTAA) with its takeover of operation of Canada’s largest airport. In increasingly responsible roles, Ian successfully led transformation efforts in Planning, Operations, Airside and Slot Management, Pricing Strategy and Air Service Development. During his tenure with GTAA lan held the position of Director of Airport Planning during the highly complex and successful $4B Airport Development Program which included a redevelopment of the entire airport site and the planning and construction of both an Infield Terminal as a capacity bridge and New Terminal One.

 

In his tenure as Director of Aviation Business Development. Ian grew International traffic by over 25 percent as well as led the negotiation of a 10 year Rates and Charges Agreement with Air Canada. This achievement earned Ian the Chairmans Award.

 

Ian left GTAA in 2015 and joined Leigh Fisher where he led projects at various international airports. He subsequently worked with Modalis Infrastructure Partners before joining Nieuport Aviation Infrastructure Partners at Billy Bishop Toronto City Airport. While at Nieuport he held the roles of Director Planning and Operations and subsequently Director of Planning and Aviation Development. In these roles Ian was responsible for Aviation Strategy as well as day-to-day operations, security, IT systems and airline relationship management. During this period, he successfully procured and implemented an Airport Operations Management System, Terminal Master Plan and various Route Development and Pricing projects.