Conrad Clifford, the former chief executive of Virgin Nigeria, is to be the new vice president of Emirates for the UK and Ireland.
He will be replacing Vic Sheppard, who is retiring this year after 13 years with Emirates.
Clifford, 51, will join the airline in September after a four-year spell with Virgin Nigeria.
Within 12 months, it became Nigeria’s biggest airline with a network of domestic, regional and international routes.
Clifford joined the aviation industry in 1981 as a trainee with Cathay Pacific, holding a range of managerial roles throughout Asia and the Far East until 1995.
He then joined Virgin Atlantic in the UK as general manager commercial, rising to commercial director.
After 9/11 he was Virgin Atlantic’s crisis commander and during his eight years at Virgin he was instrumental in setting up the airline’s operations in South Africa, Nigeria and India.
In 2002, he became commercial director of Menzies Aviation Group, rising to director, Asia, South Pacific and Africa, turning some of the region’s loss makers into profitability within 12 months.
He returned to Virgin in 2005 to oversee the establishment of Virgin Nigeria, which was 51% owned by Nigerian investors, and 49% by Virgin Atlantic.
Richard Vaughan, Emirates’ divisional senior vice president, commercial operations worldwide, said: “Vic will be a very hard act to follow and can rightly look back with pride on a period of sustained growth for Emirates in the highly competitive UK market which is the envy of our competitors.â€
By Bev Fearis
