Orchestrating Winning Performance

Yves Rossy, Jetman

Yves Rossy, Jetman

Yves Rossy has turned a futuristic dream into reality. With the jet-powered wings he designed and developed, he has flown across the Swiss Alps, the English Channel, and the Grand Canyon - with no instruments, no controls, just the wings and his body.

A pilot by training, Mr Rossy has flown military jets for the Swiss Air Force and still flies commercial airliners for Swiss International Air Lines. His dream, however, has always been to fly in the most natural way possible - like a bird. Dedicating his free time to turning a fall into flight, he experimented with sky surfing and wing suits before developing his first real wing, a rigid harness with inflatable wing panels.

The next step was to make the whole wing rigid and add engines. After seven years of development and many prototypes, in 2004 he became the first person to achieve sustained solo flight with a jet-propelled wing.

Since then, Mr Rossy has been constantly optimizing his wings' handling and performance. A new wing shape with much better stability and control allowed the first formation flights and aerobatic demonstrations in 2010.

Mr Rossy has won several international awards for his inspiring efforts, including the 2009 Faust Adventurers' Guild "Adventurer of the year", 2009 Air League award "for an outstanding contribution to aviation", and the 2008 Prix André de Saint-Sauveur.

Links:

Program Overview | Description, dates and fees | OWP spirit | Related programs | Team Offers | Program Content | Program structure | Morning plenary sessions | New frontiers in decision making | Feeling good about making money: social responsibility and cash flow | Building a corporate culture in the 21st century | Governance successes and failures around the world | The power of China in the new world | Morning streams | Leading at the edge: how to bring out the best in yourself and others | Leading the family business: leveraging complexity for outperformance (8.30 - 12.30) | Navigating the future | Customer star: how to build a customer-centric organization | Leadership journeys: exploring the dynamics of power, collaboration, trust and authenticity | Strategic partnerships to gain competitive advantage | From scenarios to strategic priorities: getting your team aligned | Feeling crushed by complexity? Effective ways to simplify your business | Re-inventing the private sector: new business models | Leading the global enterprise: confronting new discontinuities | Afternoon insight sessions | Afternoon streams | BRICs and beyond: lessons from emerging markets | Driving innovation: from simply more dollars to social change | Leading for sustainable supply chain operations | Breaking the code: winning through entrepreneurial action | Building learning organizations | Mergers and acquisitions: a strategic finance view | The hard and soft, big and small, good, bad, and ugly sides of change | Creating dream teams: is it possible? | Moving up to enterprise leader: the Seven Seismic Shifts? | Actionable growth ideas: capitalizing on new business opportunities | Keynote speakers | John Micklethwait, Editor-in-Chief, The Economist | Yves Rossy, Jetman | James T. Hackett, Chairman & CEO, Anadarko Petroleum Corporation | Faculty Insights | Publications | Videos | Alumni | Alumni community