Archer brings in Miles Rogers and Sterling Gerdes from Delta to support company’s continued efforts towards commercialisation

Archer has announced two key hires as the com­pa­ny read­ies for its Mid­night eVTOL air­craft’s planned entry into ser­vice in 2025.

Long-time pri­vate avi­a­tion exec­u­tive, Miles Rogers, has joined Archer as its Senior Vice Pres­i­dent, Head of Mar­ket­ing, while Ster­ling Gerdes has joined Archer as its Prod­uct Lead for Ver­ti­port Expe­ri­ences.

Rogers brings twen­ty years of expe­ri­ence at pri­vate avi­a­tion com­pa­nies, includ­ing Net­Jets and most recent­ly as the Chief Strat­e­gy Offi­cer at Delta Air Lines-backed Wheels Up. He will lead and over­see Archer’s glob­al mar­ket­ing efforts.

Gerdes comes to Archer after spend­ing more than sev­en years at Delta Air Lines, focused on bring­ing new prod­ucts to cus­tomers includ­ing over­see­ing its ear­ly Advanced Air Mobil­i­ty strat­e­gy.

Nikhil Goel, Archer’s Chief Com­mer­cial Offi­cer, said: “Miles and Ster­ling bring the per­fect mix of expe­ri­ence and skills to Archer’s man­age­ment team as we accel­er­ate towards com­mer­cial­i­sa­tion in 2025.

“At Wheel­sUp, Miles pio­neered key strate­gic ini­tia­tives to build the com­pa­ny into a well known brand, and at Delta Air Lines, Ster­ling over­saw the company’s ear­ly AAM strat­e­gy, with a focus on inte­grat­ing eVTOL air­craft into its oper­a­tions to upgrade a traveler’s home-to-air­port expe­ri­ence. We couldn’t be more excit­ed to have both lead­ers join the Archer team.” 

Pri­or to Archer, Rogers was most recent­ly at Wheels Up serv­ing as the company’s Chief Strat­e­gy Offi­cer. He played an instru­men­tal role in the company’s growth and accep­tance of its unique mem­ber­ship mod­el, mak­ing pri­vate avi­a­tion more acces­si­ble with an expe­ri­enced-focused empha­sis, forg­ing key part­ner­ships with glob­al­ly rec­og­nized brands and brand ambas­sadors.

Before that, Rogers served as Senior Vice Pres­i­dent of Mar­quis Jet, a pri­vate avi­a­tion com­pa­ny that was acquired by War­ren Buffett’s Net­Jets cor­po­ra­tion, which is a Berk­shire Hath­away com­pa­ny.

Com­ment­ing on his new appoint­ment, Rogers said: “I’m hon­oured to be join­ing Archer as the lev­el of tal­ent that has come to work here is unlike any­thing I’ve ever seen in my career and ensures we’re set up to suc­cess­ful­ly exe­cute the company’s vision across every aspect of the busi­ness.

“The val­ue propo­si­tion Archer is poised to deliv­er with our Mid­night eVTOL air­craft goes well beyond sav­ing peo­ple time. We have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to change our customer’s per­spec­tive on the com­mu­ni­ties they live in by pro­vid­ing a trav­el expe­ri­ence that unlocks new worlds of oppor­tu­ni­ty.

“I look for­ward to build­ing out our strate­gic ini­tia­tives with new part­ners all over the world as we bring our brand to mar­ket and change the game in urban trans­porta­tion.”

Gerdes comes to Archer after spend­ing over sev­en years at Delta Air Lines, where he most recent­ly served as its Gen­er­al Man­ag­er for Ven­ture & Inno­va­tion Strat­e­gy dur­ing which time he was respon­si­ble for tech scout­ing and ven­ture focused on bring­ing C‑suite strate­gic ini­tia­tives to life. Pri­or to that, he held var­i­ous lead­er­ship roles at Delta includ­ing in AI & Inno­va­tion Strat­e­gy.

Gerdes added: “At Delta, I had the oppor­tu­ni­ty to inter­act with all of the major eVTOL air­craft man­u­fac­tur­ers glob­al­ly and decid­ed to come to Archer because for me its vision and exe­cu­tion have dri­ven the company’s impres­sive ascent to the top of the indus­try over the last few years.

“I’m thrilled to be join­ing this team at such an excit­ing time to lead the mat­u­ra­tion of the Archer cus­tomer expe­ri­ence in prepa­ra­tion for bring­ing Mid­night to mar­ket.”