Kenn Ricci

Ricci’s personal website says he was born in 1956 in South Euclid, a suburb of Cleveland, Ohio, and grew up there. He came from a very poor family and was the son of a government worker; in a 2026 podcast he described his father’s work in organized-crime investigations and said his father did not see aviation as a stable career.⁠[1][2][3]

In 1974 Ricci entered the University of Notre Dame and joined its Air Force ROTC program. He recalled that he had wanted to be a Navy pilot until a recruiter said, “The Navy has ships, and the Air Force has planes.” While a student he earned private and commercial pilot licenses and became a flight instructor; he graduated in 1978 with a bachelor’s degree in accountancy and was a member of the marching band.⁠[1][3][4]

After graduating he worked as a flight engineer at Northwest Airlines (Northwest Orient) until he was furloughed, then as a flight instructor in Cleveland and as an accountant and demonstration pilot at Mercury Aviation, before founding Professional Flight Crews, which supplied pilots to aircraft owners. He said in a podcast that it was after the furlough that he went to law school.⁠[1][2][3]

In 1981 Ricci bought Corporate Wings, an aircraft management and charter company, priced at $27,500; he had a $27,000 loan and was $500 short, so he called his father for the rest. “I bought it so I could still have a job,” he said. Flexjet’s executive biography gives 1980 as the year he founded Corporate Wings, his first company.⁠[2][1][3][5]

In 1984 Mike Rossi joined as chief financial officer and the two began acquiring fixed-base operators (FBOs); by 1985 the business had expanded to Columbus, Rochester, Toronto, Pittsburgh and Austin, reached $3 million in annual sales and was named to the Inc. 500 list of fast-growing companies. Ricci himself flew 600 to 700 hours a year on managed jets. In 1986 he graduated from Cleveland-Marshall College of Law with a juris doctor degree.⁠[6][1][4]

During the 1992 U.S. presidential campaign Ricci was the pilot for Arkansas Governor Bill Clinton; his personal website says he flew Clinton from 1991 until the 1993 inauguration.⁠[7][1]

In 1998 Ricci launched Flight Options, which sold fractional shares of pre-owned aircraft in competition with NetJets, which sold shares of new aircraft; it reached $100 million in sales in its first five months and $300 million in its first 24 months.⁠[1][6]

In 2001–2002 Flight Options merged with Raytheon Travel Air, and Raytheon took a majority stake. Ricci recalled in a podcast that when he lost control of the company in 2002 he owned about 16%, and said, “I’ve lost my throne. It was the worst day of my life.”⁠[1][6][3]

In 2003 Ricci sold his Flight Options stake to Raytheon and established Directional Aviation Capital, an investment firm focused on private aviation. Its first major deal was the 2005 purchase of a 25% stake in Mercury Air Centers from Allied Capital; in 2007 Mercury was sold to Macquarie Infrastructure for $615 million.⁠[6][1]

In 2007 he founded Nextant Aerospace, which remanufactured business jets, and the maintenance company Constant Aviation, and in 2010 the aircraft sales firm Sojourn Aviation. In 2008 he returned to Flight Options as an investor and board member, and in 2009 he bought it back.⁠[1][6]

In 2012 Directional bought the charter broker and jet card company Sentient Jet and the fuel management firm Everest Fuel Management from Australia’s Macquarie Global Opportunities Partners for an undisclosed sum; the deal closed on May 31.⁠[8]

In September 2013 Directional Aviation Capital, headed by Ricci, agreed to buy Flexjet from Bombardier for $185 million and placed a firm order for 85 Bombardier business jets. He has since served as Flexjet’s chairman.⁠[9][5]

In a December 2016 interview with Worth, Ricci said his children skipped eighth grade and that the family homeschooled and traveled with them. Asked when he had last flown commercial, he answered, “I went to North Korea last September on Air Koryo. You can’t fly there privately.” He said he did not otherwise fly commercial because “I’d want to be seen on our product.” He said the family had a foundation that supports Able Flight, which teaches people with disabilities and veterans to fly.⁠[10]

In October 2026, on David Senra’s podcast, Ricci recalled that in 2017 he realized his youngest son had never flown on an airliner. Deciding “that’s a bad way to raise a child,” he said to the boy, “We’re going to go commercial,” and took him on a commercial flight to Tokyo. Near takeoff his son said, “Hey, Dad, there’s people on this plane I don’t know.”⁠[3]

On October 25, 2017, the University of Notre Dame announced a first-of-its-kind $100 million unrestricted commitment from Ricci and his wife, Pamela. It was structured as a Philanthropic Succession Partnership, a giving model Ricci devised, to be fulfilled first by the couple’s lifetime gifts and then by proceeds from business assets held in a family limited partnership. The Ricci family had earlier given $5 million for an outdoor home for the Band of the Fighting Irish and a RecSports facility, and Ricci was then a member of Notre Dame’s Board of Trustees.⁠[4]

In 2019 Directional sold 50% of SimCom to CAE for $85 million; in 2020 Ricci launched the special purpose acquisition company Zanite Acquisition Corp., the charter brand FXAIR and the Tuvoli spin-off. Ricci served as co-CEO of Zanite, which combined with Eve Air Mobility in 2022.⁠[6][1]

In July 2025 Flexjet raised $800 million in equity in a round led by L Catterton. As chairman, Ricci said, “L Catterton, with its special relationship with LVMH and its family of brands, provides the perfect opportunity,” and called the deal “a unique and differentiated strategic partnership.”⁠[11][12]

When Flexjet introduced the Gulfstream G700 in September 2025, Ricci expected 12 of the type by the end of 2026. In June 2026 he and Steve Varsano, founder of The Jet Business, announced Flexjet’s acquisition of that firm, and when Flexjet and Formula 1 announced their partnership in July 2026 he called it “a natural alignment of two worlds in which both luxury aircraft and fast cars require absolute precision.”⁠[13][14][15]

On David Senra’s podcast released October 28, 2026, Ricci said he has three children, six years apart. He had all three skip eighth grade and traveled with them that year: “I had them all skip eighth grade, and we traveled during their eighth-grade year.” The year consisted of six three-week trips, with homeschooling along the way and destinations built around the children’s interests, but two places were required: “Actually, the two places I made them all go was Auschwitz and North Korea.” He added, “So, I’m probably the only person that’s been three times to North Korea.”⁠[3]

In the same episode he discussed passing on wealth, saying he had gifted family limited partnership shares to his children and arguing that parents should explain the arrangement: “if you don’t tell your kids about their financial arrangement, you’re saying you don’t trust them.” He said the family’s early meetings were about whom to give money to and why: “So I taught them first to give.” He also said, “I’m accidentally wealthy.”⁠[3]

Ricci’s honors include Ernst & Young Entrepreneur of the Year (2000), the Harvard Business School Dively Entrepreneurship Award (2010), the William A. Ong Award (2012, as its youngest recipient), the Aviation Week Laureate Award (2015) and the Living Legends of Aviation Lifetime Aviation Entrepreneur Award (2016). He has served on the boards of Notre Dame, the SmithsonianSmithsonian InstitutionThe Smithsonian Institution is a museum, education and research institution created by the U.S. Congress in 1846 with the bequest of the English scientist James Smithson. Based in Washington, D.C., it runs museums such as the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of Natural History, as well as the National Zoo.Open the full entry and University Hospitals. He is an airline transport pilot and wrote Management by Trust, on building employee trust.⁠[7]

Flexjet’s executive biography adds that he sits on the board of Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University and has more than 6,000 flight hours.⁠[5]