About David Lawton

In the meeting room where David Lawton is sitting in Luton, there’s a floor-to-ceiling decal of someone diving off a boat. It’s appropriate for someone who has taken more than one brave leap in his career.

Having qualified as a chemical engineer from what was then Cork Institute of Technology, David was working at a pharmaceutical company in Dublin in 2010 and had no intention of doing an MBA. Then a friend asked him to go along to the UCD Smurfit School MBA open day.

“I thought I might think about doing an MBA in the distant future when I was about 40, but I went along with him anyway,” remembers David. “When I came out after an hour, I was thinking, ‘Right, how can I do this now?’.”

He soon found himself studying for the MBA. As the world emerged from the global financial crisis, David particularly relished the corporate governance class delivered by Niamh Brennan.

“It was so interesting to learn how organisations were being run, about the decisions being made at leadership level. In engineering, you have a technical problem to solve, you don’t necessarily have to worry about the why.”  

A mysterious job ad opens new horizons

Having completed the MBA, David went on the hunt for a role where he would gain real-world exposure to senior leadership. He spotted an ad for a role described as assistant to the managing director for an unnamed company in North Dublin.

“The job turned out to be executive assistant to the CEO of Aer Lingus, who was Christoph Mueller at the time. I had never worked in aviation and knew nothing about it, but that role meant I was getting an admittedly thin layer of knowledge across the entire airline from the top down.”

While in the job, he became fascinated by the booming area of aircraft leasing and finance, and went on to spend 2.5 years as the Narrowbody Fleet Manager for Aer Lingus, reporting to then Chief Commercial Officer Stephen Kavanagh, who later became CEO.

Learning plenty in stormy weather

From Aer Lingus, he went on to do a short stint at AerCap, but was keen to return to working directly for an airline. He started as head of fleet procurement with easyJet in 2016. He stayed there for seven years and has lived in the UK since taking up the role.

He credits his experience at easyJet during the pandemic as particularly formative, especially in terms of exposure to leadership.

“I hadn’t really worked with the CFO, Andrew Findlay, up to 2020, but for a solid nine months I talked to him almost every day. We were under immense pressure, as it was a really turbulent time. Seeing him steer that ship was inspiring. He helped calm everyone down and gave everyone trust in the business.”

Managing complexity at TUI

In 2023, it was time for a new challenge and David joined TUI Group, the world’s largest integrated tourism business, as its Director of Fleet and Capacity Management.

“TUI is a massive, global travel company that owns hotels, cruise ships and aircraft,” he explains.  “We’ve got 125 aircraft internally and we source about another 25 from other airlines to fly on our behalf. My department is responsible for sourcing all that capacity.”

“Essentially, we bring people on holiday, which is a great mission. You’re getting customers at their most joyous and they put great trust in us to make that experience great.

“It’s incredibly complex with so many different parts and people that need to come together to make it happen, from pilots, cabin crew and cleaners to flight schedulers and slot coordinators.”

For his part, David’s role ranges across three key areas, fleet planning, fleet financing and operating leases. Aircraft leasing and management is a complex, dynamic arena demanding extensive negotiation and long-term collaboration with multiple commercial and strategic partners. Fleet management is strategically critical and he sits on the board of TUI Airline.

“I’ve been blessed with people I’ve worked for. They’ve always pushed me to do more than I thought I was capable of. My CEO and colleagues on the board in TUI are particularly inspiring and a real source of guidance for how I would like to lead.”

MBA was an inflection point

David points to his MBA at UCD Smurfit School as a definitive turning point in his career.  “I would be not be here unless I had done the MBA. It gave me the confidence to reset and go back a level, and to develop a financial mindset I hadn’t had before.

“I always think about it as like a language course. As an engineer, you can have quite a black-and-white, technical approach to problems, but when you move into the realm of business, it’s much more grey and nuanced. You need to be able to talk about the financial and strategic implications of the decisions we make and why we make them.

“When I went into the Smurfit School on the first day, I felt like a complete impostor, but I was quickly reassured by everyone’s interest in learning, in developing their knowledge and skill sets, and in improving their careers.

Keeping in mind the greater good

David goes back again to Niamh Brennan’s class at UCD Smurfit. “I can still hear the discussions we had at the time about things that occurred during the financial crisis and the ethical dilemmas we might need to consider in our corporate lives.”

When it comes to working with air travel, that means environment factors must be considered, he says.

“There are externalities to all of our business, I’ve gone on a journey where I recognise now the impact our industry is having on our environment. For a long time, I was putting my head in the sand, but our CEO at easyJet Johan Lundgren was a real frontrunner and personally invested in acknowledging our industry’s impact on the environment and taking tangible steps to address it.

“There are no easy answers, but we must recognise there is an existential threat we have to try and redress, while also recognising the industry brings immense economic benefits. It’s in our interest to grow and prosper, but it has to be while we minimise the environmental impact.” 

Panel

What is your leadership style?

I’d like to think I’m clear on direction, and participatory in terms of getting all voices heard. I really want to support the development and careers of people working for me, what I’ve tried to learn from my experience.

Also people in my team are vastly better at things than I am, which is a massive relief for me. It’s in my interest to take on board their views and make sure I’m listening.

What tips would you give others at the start of their leadership journey?

Do the stuff no one else wants to do. People think they should be doing the high profile big wins, but there is only so much of that going around.

When you do the stuff that is difficult, it requires a bit of humility. It’s like cleaning out the sewer drains. No one puts their hand up for it, but it needs to be done and when it’s done, everything works better. A leader in GSK said that to me when I worked in engineering and it really stuck with me.

What has been your biggest success or failure in business?

After Covid, a famous analyst come in from one of the banks to give his view of easyJet. Myself and my work partner, Robin Pittkin, had managed to create USD1.9 billion of liquidity for business by selling assets, deferred deliveries and saved capital. When we asked him what he thought of our actions, he said, ‘Well, you now have very expensive ownership costs because of what you have done’.”

By changing the ownership structure, we had really increased our costs over time, so I look at that as the biggest success and biggest failure of my career so far!

What keeps you awake at night?

The kids! I have two boys, a six-month-old and a two-and-a-half-year old, and they’re the best thing I’ve ever done. I’m loving being a Dad.

From a professional point of view, about the mission bringing people on holiday truly is an absolute gift to be able to do that, When we get it right, it’s great but when we don’t, it’s awful.

What are your interests outside of work?

I normally do more running than I have in recent times, but I’m getting back into it. I’ve committed to doing a 10km run every Wednesday in the Royal Parks for the summer. And I did a half marathon two weeks ago. It was one of those things I signed up to thinking, ‘I’ll do the training’ and of course I ended up at the start line not having done the training, but I got through it.

I’m also finding out the joys of soft play. At 45, I didn’t think I’d be climbing my way through what reminds me of that 1980s TV show, Pat Sharp’s Fun House!

June 2025