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Wisk’s Gary Gysin to retire next month, with Boeing’s Dr. Brian Yutko to take over as CEO

Wisk CEO Gary Gysin has announced he will retire from his posi­tion at the start of next month, with the com­pa­ny select­ing Dr. Bri­an Yutko to lead oper­a­tions.

Yutko cur­rent­ly serves as Vice Pres­i­dent and Chief Engi­neer of Sus­tain­abil­i­ty & Future Mobil­i­ty at Boe­ing. He was select­ed by an unan­i­mous Board vote to join Wisk as the new CEO, based on his expe­ri­ence with eVTOL air­craft and autonomous tech­nol­o­gy and his pas­sion for the company’s vision.

As a Board mem­ber, Yutko has devel­oped a deep famil­iar­i­ty with Wisk and its strat­e­gy, the Gen­er­a­tion 6 pro­gramme and the company’s long-term goals. He will resign from his cur­rent posi­tion with Boe­ing and assume his role as CEO at Wisk, effec­tive from Feb­ru­ary 1st.

Gysin said: “After near­ly four decades of a career at the fore­front of tech­nol­o­gy and auton­o­my, I’ve made the dif­fi­cult deci­sion to retire. Lead­ing Wisk has been one of the most reward­ing roles of my career and I’m hon­oured to have helped lay the foun­da­tion for both the com­pa­ny and the future of mobil­i­ty.

“Wisk is an incred­i­bly unique and rare place, with pas­sion­ate and smart peo­ple at all lev­els and the resources to make it across the fin­ish line. I’m very excit­ed to con­tin­ue watch­ing Wisk suc­ceed under the strong lead­er­ship of Bri­an Yutko.” 

As CEO, Gysin helped found the Wisk brand and trans­form the com­pa­ny into an indus­try leader. He led the for­ma­tion of the company’s lead­er­ship team and, under his direc­tion, the com­pa­ny saw tremen­dous growth across all teams — includ­ing devel­op­ment, engi­neer­ing, and busi­ness oper­a­tions.

Gysin set the direc­tion for the company’s long-term vision, strat­e­gy, and goals, while also strength­en­ing the strate­gic part­ner­ship with Boe­ing — includ­ing an addi­tion­al $450M invest­ment com­mit­ment in Jan­u­ary of 2022.

Most recent­ly, Gysin over­saw the strat­e­gy for the launch and devel­op­ment of Wisk’s 6th Gen­er­a­tion air taxi, the world’s most advanced air taxi. Thanks to Gysin’s lead­er­ship, Wisk has become a leader in the Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty indus­try and is glob­al­ly rec­og­nized as a pio­neer in auton­o­my and future mobil­i­ty. 

Gysin shared his inten­tion to retire with Wisk’s Board and Exec­u­tive Lead­er­ship Team in the mid­dle of last year.

Bri­an Schet­tler, Chair­man of Wisk’s Board, said: “On behalf of Wisk’s board, employ­ees, and the broad­er advanced air mobil­i­ty indus­try, I want to thank Gary for his ded­i­ca­tion, com­mit­ment, and lead­er­ship since Wisk’s found­ing in 2019. Gary’s authen­tic­i­ty, exe­cu­tion, and vision have estab­lished Wisk as a leader in advanced air mobil­i­ty, built trust among the broad­er pub­lic, and advanced the indus­try as a whole.” 

Schet­tler added: “We are excit­ed to wel­come Bri­an Yutko as Wisk’s new CEO. To date, Bri­an has already been instru­men­tal to Wisk’s suc­cess — from help­ing to secure addi­tion­al resources for Wisk from with­in Boe­ing, to cham­pi­oning the Con­cept of Oper­a­tions, devel­oped by the two com­pa­nies. Brian’s deep exper­tise in avi­a­tion and pas­sion for auton­o­my, as well as his exist­ing famil­iar­i­ty with Wisk, will enable a smooth tran­si­tion and allow Wisk to main­tain its devel­op­ment time­lines and tra­jec­to­ry with­in the indus­try with min­i­mal dis­rup­tion.” 

Yutko has served mul­ti­ple lead­er­ship roles at Boe­ing, includ­ing Chief Tech­nol­o­gist for Boe­ing NeXt. Pri­or to Boe­ing, Yutko was Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Pro­grams at Auro­ra Flight Sci­ences, where he held P&L respon­si­bil­i­ty, led Research and Devel­op­ment, and also served as a pro­gram man­ag­er and prin­ci­pal inves­ti­ga­tor for var­i­ous rapid pro­to­typ­ing and autonomous tech­nol­o­gy devel­op­ment pro­grams.

He helped to lead Auro­ra through a peri­od of sub­stan­tial growth while the com­pa­ny pio­neered cut­ting edge autonomous sys­tems tech­nolo­gies and appli­ca­tions. He began his career at MIT and NASA. Yutko received his Bach­e­lors of Sci­ence in Aero­space Engi­neer­ing from Penn State Uni­ver­si­ty and his Mas­ters of Sci­ence and PhD in Astro­nau­ti­cal Engi­neer­ing from Mass­a­chu­setts Insti­tute of Tech­nol­o­gy (MIT).

Yutko added: “I’ve spent my career pur­su­ing the future of avi­a­tion and Wisk is the embod­i­ment of that pur­suit. I’m for­tu­nate to have been part of Wisk’s effort over the past two years as a mem­ber of the Board and I’m hon­oured to take on the role as CEO. Under Gary’s lead­er­ship, Wisk has built an incred­i­bly strong team with a track record of suc­cess. We have no plans of slow­ing down and I’m excit­ed to lead this incred­i­ble team as we advance safe, every­day, autonomous flight.”

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Jason Pritchard

Jason Pritchard is the Editor of eVTOL Insights. He holds a BA from Leicester's De Montfort University and has worked in Journalism and Public Relations for more than a decade. Outside of work, Jason enjoys playing and watching football and golf. He also has a keen interest in Ancient Egypt.

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