Panasonic Avionics Corporation (Panasonic Avionics) named Ken Sain chief executive officer.
He succeeds Hideo Nakano, who has served as Panasonic Avionics CEO since 2017 and as deputy CEO prior to that. Nakano will now serve as Special Advisor for Panasonic Avionics.
Sain, who most recently served as vice president of Digital Solutions and Analytics for Boeing Global Services and as CEO of Boeing subsidiary Jeppesen, will join Panasonic Avionics on Dec. 2, 2019.
"We are excited to welcome Ken to the Panasonic team," said Michael Moskowitz, chairman and CEO of Panasonic Corporation of North America, the parent company of Panasonic Avionics. "His entrepreneurial spirit and proven track record in aviation will undoubtedly accelerate Panasonic's customer-centric innovation and the digital transformation journeys of its airline customers."
Hideo Nakano, chief executive officer of Panasonic Avionics, said, "Throughout his career, Ken has demonstrated tremendous leadership in change management and business growth. This proven legacy of success, combined with his expertise in developing and launching inflight digital solutions, will no doubt help accelerate our mission to make flying an experience everyone looks forward to."
"Panasonic Avionics created the aviation industry's first inflight entertainment solution 40 years ago and became the market leader through continuous innovation," said Ken Sain. "I'm both honored and excited to join the talented Panasonic team to build upon this success and redefine the passenger experience of the future with our airline customers."
Throughout his 25-year career, Sain has developed a broad mix of cross-functional leadership experience. He is recognized as a passionate, customer-focused, aviation technology business leader with deep expertise in airline operations and maintenance.
Sain spent the last 14 years of his career with Boeing in various roles including strategy, technical engineering services and digital solutions. In his most recent role leading Digital Solutions and Analytics, he oversaw significant growth in Boeing's customer-facing digital solutions portfolio, using agile software development to launch new products and cloud-based solutions for airline and business aviation customers around the world.
Prior to Boeing, Sain was a principal with global management consulting firm A.T. Kearney. For over ten years, he specialized in business strategy, operations and top-line growth for major airlines, airline alliances and travel technology providers.
Sain holds a Master of Business Administration from the Kellogg School of Management and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics from Northwestern University. After graduating from Northwestern, Sain was part of a small team to found Midway Airlines and subsequently served the airline in operations, market planning and as Director of Marketing.
