Executive Profile: Becky Tanner, Chief Marketing Officer at Wisk Aero

The month­ly Exec­u­tive Pro­file series con­tin­ues with Becky Tan­ner, Chief Mar­ket­ing Office (CMO) at Wisk Aero. We began these inter­views as an infor­mal way to get to know the industry’s thought lead­ers, inno­va­tors and influ­encers. Every­thing from their favourite bit of advice, book and hol­i­day des­ti­na­tion, to their top three chal­lenges for the mar­ket and the biggest devel­op­ment to hap­pen this year.

If you’re work­ing in the indus­try and would like to be fea­tured in these inter­views, we’d love to hear from you! Please email editorial@evtolinsights.com and one of the team will get back in touch.

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Chris Stonor Asks The Ques­tions.

Describe Wisk Aero in 5 words

Pio­neer of self-fly­ing, pas­sen­ger eVTOL

What event inspired you to become involved in the eVTOL Indus­try?

It was a phone call and a cof­fee. Our CEO, Gary Gysin, and I pre­vi­ous­ly worked togeth­er at anoth­er autonomous tech com­pa­ny. Gary told me what the com­pa­ny was work­ing on, and I was in. I’ve always worked at engi­neer­ing-heavy com­pa­nies and hear­ing what was in the works here blew me away. I had to be part of this.

Proud­est Wisk moment to date?

This is hard. We have many proud moments over the last few years and a few big ones about to hap­pen. As the Chief Mar­ket­ing Offi­cer, I feel proud when we get to share our work exter­nal­ly. In July I went to Aus­tralia to help announce our part­ner­ship to bring our self-fly­ing air taxis to Queens­land. It was great to have the air­craft on dis­play in down­town Bris­bane and announce our plans. At the same time, addi­tion­al team­mates were on the oth­er side of the world at Farn­bor­ough Inter­na­tion­al Air Show in the UK, show­cas­ing the air­craft, our part­ner­ship with Boe­ing, and talk­ing about a vision for the future. It was an incred­i­ble week for our com­pa­ny!

How are devel­op­ments com­ing along at the com­pa­ny?

It is an excit­ing and busy time for us! We’ve grown quick­ly this year, expand­ed to Aus­tralia and Cana­da, announced anoth­er round of fund­ing from Boe­ing, con­tin­ued with our cus­tomer research, expand­ed the go-to-mar­ket plans, while mak­ing tremen­dous progress on all aspects of bring­ing our self-fly­ing air taxis to mar­ket.

We have some aggres­sive plans to meet this year and the team is on track to meet those goals. The work that we are doing is hard, but that is also why we are all here.
 
What is Wisk’s vision for eVTOL and UAM Mar­ket?

Sim­ply put: our mis­sion is to bring safe every­day flight to every­one. In order for this mar­ket to tru­ly reach its full poten­tial, be depend­able for our future cus­tomers and part­ners, and to pro­vide the safest option on the mar­ket, we believe it must be done with self-fly­ing air­craft. Our air­craft must also be envi­ron­men­tal­ly respon­si­ble too, so we will remain focused on being bat­tery-pow­ered.

Wisk’s brand is known for our warm yel­low col­or. We stand out and we like it! Long term we want this new mode of trans­porta­tion and all the self­ies tak­en on our yel­low air­craft to be the norm. When this is no longer nov­el, but rather woven into our every­day lives, we’ve real­ly made it.

Wisk Aero 5th Gen­er­a­tion ‘Cora’ on Dis­play at Recent Farn­bor­ough Air­show

Does mar­ket­ing the eVTOL indus­try dif­fer from pre­vi­ous held mar­ket­ing jobs?

Absolute­ly! Because this is a new mar­ket with many lay­ers of stake­hold­ers and com­plex require­ments, this is tru­ly a unique oppor­tu­ni­ty. To intro­duce an entire­ly new form of trans­porta­tion, with a new type of air­craft, requires a ton of research, com­mu­ni­ca­tion, brand build­ing, and stake­hold­er engage­ment. Being at Wisk is the most fun I’ve had. It is also the most chal­leng­ing. Stretch­ing myself dai­ly and brain­storm­ing with your ultra-smart (and won­der­ful) cowork­ers is a tremen­dous oppor­tu­ni­ty. Not only do I love our brand and vision, I’m tru­ly excit­ed to be part of some­thing that will change the world.

How has the eVTOL indus­try changed dur­ing your 3 years at Wisk?

When I first start­ed at Wisk the mar­ket was rather qui­et. We were redefin­ing the com­pa­ny and brand. Most of the mar­ket was still most­ly in “stealth mode”. Then news sto­ries and mar­ket pro­jec­tions start­ed bring­ing new atten­tion, events start­ed, new com­pa­nies entered, and much more. It went from qui­et to very active quite quick­ly. Fast for­ward to today, this mar­ket is wide­ly cov­ered, the gen­er­al pub­lic is becom­ing more and more engaged and aware, and oth­er com­pa­nies who will help con­tribute to the broad­er ecosys­tem have emerged. Addi­tion­al­ly, all the right con­ver­sa­tions are hap­pen­ing with crit­i­cal stake­hold­ers like the FAA/EASA/CASA, NASA, cities, and more.

What does a typ­i­cal work­ing day look like?

The hon­est answer is rather quite bor­ing! Like most of the cor­po­rate world today, my day is spent in meet­ings, in my email inbox and instant mes­sage chat groups, mon­i­tor­ing the indus­try and broad­er con­ver­sa­tion, and think­ing about what we are tack­ling this year and in the next 2–3 years. There are a lot of real­ly inter­est­ing and chal­leng­ing projects in motion so my day bounces around from Gen­er­a­tion 6 ini­tia­tives, Exec and Mar­ket­ing team dis­cus­sions, Go-to-Mar­ket plan­ning, meet­ing with out­side agency part­ners, and nav­i­gat­ing my fam­i­ly com­mit­ments. It’s easy for work to con­sume my entire day so I also make a con­scious effort to do some­thing for my health each morn­ing before the meet­ing day real­ly hits.

How­ev­er, at Wisk, a typ­i­cal day also includes flight tests, which we con­duct mul­ti­ple times a week. While it’s not nec­es­sar­i­ly part of my day-to-day, I often get the chance to expe­ri­ence a flight test in per­son and watch­ing our air­craft fly autonomous­ly always pro­vides a boost of inspi­ra­tion and reminds us why we’re here.  

The days fly by. In fact, the past 3 years have felt like I was on a bul­let train! 

Best bit of advice you have ever been giv­en?

It’s OK to say you don’t have the answer. We all feel the pres­sure to be the best we can be, but even when we are at our best, any one per­son doesn’t know every­thing. It’s OK to ask for help and time to go dis­cov­er the answer.

Sec­ond­ly, speak up. I am a female with a Busi­ness Mar­ket­ing back­ground who has always worked in engi­neer­ing-led com­pa­nies. It was easy to be an observ­er. When I stopped being an observ­er and start­ed speak­ing up, it made a big dif­fer­ence. I felt more con­nect­ed, I grew faster, and added more val­ue.

How do you relax away from job?

Exer­cis­ing. It’s become more about my men­tal health than my phys­i­cal health. I feel ready for the day after I am done. And when I can, I also love to cook for myself and my fam­i­ly almost every night. And of course, I love check­ing out and watch­ing some­thing real­ly good. Ted Las­so and Ozark are the best of the best!

What is your favourite book and film?

My favourite book is Born a Crime by Trevor Noah. I love auto­bi­ogra­phies. His sto­ry of being lit­er­al­ly born a crime in South Africa dur­ing apartheid is an incred­i­ble sto­ry. It’s brave and heart­break­ing, but with a Trevor Noah-comedic twist. I high­ly rec­om­mend the audio book so you can hear him speak in var­i­ous lan­guages and imper­son­ate his fam­i­ly.

Favourite hol­i­day des­ti­na­tion?

This is real­ly hard. Out­side the US, I would say Lon­don and Van­cou­ver, Cana­da. In the US, and in my state of Cal­i­for­nia, my hap­py place is San Luis Obis­po. I look at the real estate mar­ket there dai­ly (I wish I was kid­ding) and will live there once again some­day…

Favourite Food

What is your favourite food?

Viet­namese is hands down my favourite food. I’ve got to trav­el there one day.

What are the top three chal­lenges fac­ing eVTOL indus­try?

Air­space inte­gra­tion, infra­struc­ture, and pub­lic accep­tance.

Most impor­tant eVTOL devel­op­ment you think may hap­pen over next year?

For cer­tain, the reveal of our Gen­er­a­tion 6 air­craft and what it rep­re­sents as the first can­di­date for FAA cer­ti­fi­ca­tion of an autonomous, eVTOL air taxi for pas­sen­ger usel! But also, see­ing the pri­or­i­ti­za­tion of autonomous avi­a­tion and air­space inte­gra­tion. 

Where do you think the indus­try will be in five years time?

Some might not like this answer, but hon­est­ly in 5 years time, I think the world will see the first routes emerge and work­ing. It’s impor­tant for this indus­try to start at the appro­pri­ate pace, to prove the safe­ty case and the val­ue. I also think we will see con­sol­i­da­tion in the mar­ket and, although the num­ber may be few­er, well-posi­tioned com­pa­nies will  keep press­ing for­ward. As I said this is real­ly hard work with a long roadmap. We will see lead­ers emerge on var­i­ous aspects of the broad­er ecosys­tem.

How can peo­ple get in touch with Wisk Aero?

Call our CEO’s mobile phone num­ber. Bet­ter yet, check us out on all the social media plat­forms or get in touch via our web­site (Where you can also  see my amaz­ing team’s work).

For more infor­ma­tion

https://wisk.aero