From Telecom to tarmac to top tier: Nikhil Ravishankar's unique path to Air NZ CEO

Sunday, 2 November 2025

Air New Zealand’s new boss, Nikhil Ravishankar, says he’s not a natural-born chief executive but he has a clear vision of leadership and how to take the airline into its next phase.

“I don't mind nuance as a leader. I don't shoot from the hip, I'm very considered. I try to be very thoughtful.

“I fundamentally believe in setting people around me up for success, and I submitted to that motto a long time ago.”

In general, he says of ascending to the role of chief executive of Air New Zealand: “some may be born ready for jobs like this. I think most of the rest of us have to learn it. And I'm in that latter camp.

“It's an incredible privilege to do a job like this, because you get to work with some of the most talented people in the country.

“My job is to harness the best of the best in each of the roles that we've got across the airline. That thought is very comforting for me, to know that I'm not doing this by myself.”

The feeling is light years away from those visited on Ravishankar when he arrived with his family from India in 1996. He was 15 at the time and the place felt empty compared with his home town of Bengaluru.

His parents are archetypical, holding two or three degrees each. His father was an engineer and serial entrepreneur. In the later stages of her career, his mother was a continuing education researcher in Canada, working in the development of underprivileged women.

She was a university activist growing up, and stood for fairness and giving voice to the voiceless, the new chief executive says.

“I grew up in an environment of very strong women role models. My grandmother was the first Indian lady to teach English at Oxford University.”

It was a fairly highly academic household, but with people who were quite technical. An uncle was the commodore of the Indian Navy, and another taught at Uppsala University in Sweden and MIT in the United States.

But home was also where there was a lot of political debate, Ravishankar says.

His grandparents had lived through the tail end of the Indian independence movement, but they were Anglophiles: “So I learned very quickly early on, the ability to hold two opposing thoughts in your head and still be able to function … and understanding that life is grey.”

He went to the “most incredible school in Bengaluru”, an old British Catholic school with old fashioned values, hard work and service ethos.

But with his mother working in Canada, and father a busy entrepreneur full of startup ideas, the young Ravishankar grew up mostly with his grandfather or an aunt.

“Coming to New Zealand was actually just bringing the family unit back together. I just finished form five in India, and they thought of it as a logical time.”

A lonely time

The airline boss was struck by the lack of people on arriving in New Zealand, and had a deep sense of loneliness.

“It was very difficult. Those first couple of years probably have influenced me more than anything else in my life,” he tells the Sunday Star-Times.

“We came from a fairly comfortable, upper-middle class family, to really understanding what it's like to not have money.

“Almost since the day I arrived, I've been working full-time.”

During his sixth and seventh form years at Mount Albert Grammar ‒ years 12 and 13 ‒he worked at burger joint Wendy's after school, and sold timeshares on the weekends: “So you grow up pretty quickly.”

But it was also tough being a teenager from India. “I spoke funny, dressed funny. Some would argue I still speak funny and still dress funny.”

Some of those commenting on Ravishankar’s dress and speech are those who submitted their feelings on social media when he was announced as the successor to Greg Foran to head up Air New Zealand. The racial abuse was, sadly, not unfamiliar.

Ravishankar says he’s not sure why his parents decided to move to New Zealand. “But now I look back, it's the greatest decision they ever made.”

Tech whiz

Having gained a degree in computer science, management science and information systems from University of Auckland, he launched a startup building the first apps allowing videos to play on mobile phones connected to the 2G networks. But investors would “shoo us away, saying no one will ever watch TV on mobile phones”.

“It still feels raw to say I learned a lot from that experience.”

But Telecom in 2005 got wind of “these guys doing stuff with mobile TV” and he was offered a job “as the internet collided into the telecommunications industry”.

It was his first big lesson in disruption ‒ and about how large organisations entrenched in one generation of thought about technology must be nimble and open-minded about evolving their thinking. All the while, understanding “the most complex system to change in the world is human systems”.

Ravishankar rose to head of technology strategy at Telecom before moving to consulting firm Accenture in Sydney and Hong Kong to expand his experience and understanding of the world.

Promotions came thick and fast, which came as a surprise to him. He now puts that down to his early New Zealand experience. “In New Zealand, we're taught to think critically, be sort of low maintenance, be humble and just get on with it.”

Ever since, he has made it his career objective to focus on New Zealand Inc problems.

Greg Foran comes calling

A stint at Auckland energy company Vector as its inaugural chief digital officer was interrupted in early 2021 when the new chief executive of Air New Zealand, Greg Foran, called. The mission: to be part of the post-Covid rebuild team for the airline.

In leaving Vector, Ravishankar told chief executive Simon Mackenzie: “This is an important task that I need to go and do. New Zealand relies on aviation more than most countries around the world.

“It made sense to me to come in and help with that.”

Some time during all that, the new Air New Zealand head married and had two children, now aged 13 and 10. Commenting on the family, he says “nerds breed nerds. My son loves chess, and he's in the Mathex team. My daughter's much the same.”

Big jobs have had to coexist with family life through much of his career, but the new chief executive says the Air NZ post-Covid rebuild was one of the biggest, given no one had tried to restart an airline before.

“There was no ‘on’ switch after we had turned most of the business off. So restarting the airline after Covid, hands down, has been the most complex thing that I've put my mind to.

“It's probably the largest corporate rebuild in New Zealand history. Almost 70% of the workforce are either new or have rejoined since Covid, and getting them all playing in position, while building new infrastructure, new tools ‒ it's been a busy old place.”

As the rebuild continued, the airline also had to deal with several major issues that could have been existential, including the flood at Auckland Airport that destroyed ground infrastructure, just as the country was starting to come out of Covid.

But it was Cyclone Gabrielle that prompted a realisation of just how integral to the fabric of New Zealand a functioning and responsive Air New Zealand is. The airline was one of the first responders into devastated regions, flying in Starlink communication units that were being trialled at the time to allow internet coverage on board aircraft.

Taking over

Engines have been the big issue facing Air New Zealand after the Covid reset, with up to 11 jet aircraft grounded at any one time due to engines from Rolls-Royce and Pratt & Whitney needing more frequent servicing than expected. Ravishankar says the airline is “getting to a good place” on the engine issue.

He insists he had no aspirations to be chief executive when he joined.

“There were many others in the running, but at some point, you have to decide to do it. That decision for me cost me about seven kilos of introspection and asking myself, ‘why do I want the job?’”

But the answer to all that was, in some ways, realising that being steeped in the airline’s transformation programme gave him a great springboard, while continuity was important ‒ and he could bring it.

His “first five days have felt like 100 days squashed into five”, tackling issues like subsidies for regional routes ‒ an idea swiftly rejected by Prime Minister and former Air NZ chief executive Christopher Luxon; conversations with engine manufacturers that power the Boeing 787-9 long haul fleet and some of the Airbus A320 short haul jets, and other preparation for the medium term.

“The number one priority is to not lose momentum. Second thing for us is to get all our aircraft back. And the third is to make sure by around March, April next year we have refreshed our group strategy and refined the operating model for what's to come,” Ravishankar says.

“But we also know there are pivots to be made, and certain parts of our business that are structurally challenged.” That includes a reset of the regional network served by turboprop aircraft.

But there are also a lot of opportunities to capitalise on. “One is to go hunt down those recession proof Americans, or people out of Asia, and convince them that New Zealand is the place for their next holiday, not just once, but turning them into a repeat customer of New Zealand.”

As to how long he expects to be in the top job, Ravishankar compares it to the reign of an All Blacks coach.

“I'll do my bit to make sure that jersey is in a good place, and then hand that over when the time's right.'