Tony Fernandes
Tony Fernandes
Tan Sri Anthony Francis "Tony" Fernandes, CBEis a Malaysian entrepreneur. He is the founder of Tune Air Sdn. Bhd., who introduced the first budget no-frills airline, AirAsia, to Malaysians with the tagline "Now everyone can fly". Fernandes managed to turn AirAsia, a failing government-linked commercial airline, into a highly successful budget airline public-listed company. He has since founded the Tune Group of companies...
NationalityMalaysian
ProfessionEntrepreneur
Date of Birth30 April 1964
CityKuala Lumpur, Malaysia
CountryMalaysia
I don't care about failing because I do not want to sit down in my older years and say, 'How come I didn't try?'
If you have a great product but no one knows about it, it's history.
Passion is just something that comes naturally to me.
My whole life's been stability. People who have worked with me have for a long time. Air Asia is the same people who started it.
My whole life has always been about looking for that person that money can't buy in that they've got a bee in their bonnet.
I look for people who have drive, who have ambition, who are humble. I've hired many people at very strange places.
In AirAsia, we consider ourselves basically a dream factory. We deliberately decided that we wanted a company where people can pursue their passion, and we wanted to make use of all the talent that we have in-house.
Good leadership is to know when to go, and you only succeed as a good leader if you've transported someone else in and the company gets stronger. Then you've succeeded as leader.
Winning is an amazing feeling. You don't get that in business; you don't get that in many things.
I'm not cynical or bitter in any way. Life's too short; you get ripped off, but if you hold a grudge, it's going to affect you. You take it on the chin, you learn, you try not to make the same mistakes.
When I started my airline business, I didn't know everything, right? If I start up a newspaper tomorrow, I might get ripped off by journalists. You'd be naive to think you know everything from day one.
Aviation is for the common man. My goal is to enable everyone to fly. It shouldn't be only for the rich.
Airlines are one of the last things to be liberalized.
Ive lived in Jakarta and have seen a lot more by living here, and I understand that theres so much more to Indonesia than just Bali and Jakarta.