Former Chief People Officer of Rolls-Royce Harry Holt joins Vertical Aerospace as its new COO

Ver­ti­cal Aero­space has announced the appoint­ment of Har­ry Holt as Chief Oper­at­ing Offi­cer.

He joins the com­pa­ny from Rolls-Royce, where he was Chief Peo­ple Offi­cer and served as a mem­ber of its exec­u­tive team, man­ag­ing its peo­ple strat­e­gy and with respon­si­bil­i­ty for more than 50,000 employ­ees glob­al­ly.

Pre­vi­ous­ly, he led Rolls-Royce’s Nuclear Busi­ness in sup­port of the Roy­al Navy’s Sub­ma­rine Pro­gramme and the Civ­il Nuclear pow­er mar­kets world­wide, as well as pre­vi­ous­ly being Group Oper­a­tions Strat­e­gy Direc­tor. Holt began his career in the British Army, ful­fill­ing some of the most demand­ing roles both as a com­man­der on com­bat oper­a­tions and as a strate­gic plan­ner in the UK Min­istry of Defence. 

As COO of Ver­ti­cal, Har­ry will focus on imple­ment­ing the com­pa­ny’s oper­a­tional and man­u­fac­tur­ing strat­e­gy, estab­lish­ing its gov­er­nance, con­trol, and assur­ance frame­work and lead­ing the busi­ness’ gov­ern­ment rela­tions efforts. 

This will be a cru­cial role as Ver­ti­cal con­tin­ues to deliv­er on key oper­a­tional mile­stones in the pro­duc­tion of the VA-X4, Vertical’s mar­ket lead­ing, zero oper­at­ing emis­sions eVTOL. 

Stephen Fitz­patrick, Founder and CEO of Ver­ti­cal Aero­space, said: “Har­ry brings exten­sive exper­tise of man­ag­ing organ­i­sa­tions oper­at­ing at scale and speed, and is an out­stand­ing addi­tion to our team as we enter the next phase of growth. We are delight­ed to add Har­ry to our expe­ri­enced team which we have care­ful­ly assem­bled to com­mer­cialise the VA-X4,  the eVTOL that will trans­form trav­el in the com­ing decade.” 

The announce­ment fur­ther strength­ens Vertical’s senior lead­er­ship team which is well-bal­anced and draws from indus­try lead­ers in the avi­a­tion, ener­gy, engi­neer­ing and tech­nol­o­gy sec­tors.

Ver­ti­cal has already received con­di­tion­al pre-orders for a total of up to 1,350 air­craft from Amer­i­can Air­lines, Avolon, Bris­tow and Ibero­jet, which includes pre-order options from Vir­gin Atlantic and Marubeni. In June 2021, Ver­ti­cal announced a SPAC merg­er with Broad­stone Acqui­si­tion Corp.

Addi­tion­al­ly, Rolls-Royce is a strate­gic part­ner for Ver­ti­cal and sup­ply­ing the elec­tri­cal tech­nol­o­gy that will pow­er the VA-X4. The announce­ment today strength­ens the rela­tion­ship between the two com­pa­nies and high­lights their coor­di­na­tion and shar­ing of world-class exper­tise as they devel­op indus­try-lead­ing tech­nolo­gies that will pio­neer elec­tric avi­a­tion. 

Holt added: “It is an excit­ing time to join the high cal­i­bre team that Ver­ti­cal has assem­bled. It is clear that the VA-X4 is going to rev­o­lu­tionise short-haul air trav­el. I am proud have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to play a part in trans­form­ing avi­a­tion while also deliv­er­ing on our objec­tive to achieve a net zero econ­o­my.”