Glidepath’s Founder, Ken Stevens, Appointed MD

Media Release 1 September 2008

Glidepath’s Founder, Ken Stevens, Appointed MD to Push International Growth

Ken Stevens, Founder and Chairman of Glidepath, is taking up the reins as Managing Director to spearhead its global push to be one of the biggest and best airport baggage handling specialists in the world.

“We’re entering a new era of growth and want to truly internationalise the business to get closer to customers and be in a position to quickly respond to new opportunities for our state of the art airport baggage handling and security systems,” Mr Stevens said.

“Our strategy is to follow the customer and extend our leadership as a one stop shop with a proven track record for performance, service, continuous innovation and managing customer relationships.”

As Managing Director, Mr Stevens is replacing CEO, Dave Body, who has stepped down following an amicable agreement with Glidepath’s Advisory Board.

“We felt the time was right now for me to work my way back into the day to day operations of the company as we develop internationally and to play a much bigger part in implementing our growth strategy,” Mr Stevens said, but stressed that he would continue to be involved in a range of activities to promote New Zealand businesses internationally including in his role as Chairman of Export New Zealand. His services to New Zealand exporting were recognised in the 2008 New Year Honours when he was made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit by Queen Elizabeth II.

Glidepath is in good shape, he said, with a healthy forward order book, a growing network of new and established customers and a suite of unique, proprietary automated baggage handling and integrated security systems that are ideally suited to mid sized airports across the world and the needs of travellers.
We want to build a global company and business culture, with a design, software, engineering and head office administration hub in New Zealand, and a network of sales, business development and project management offices strategically located in our main markets.”

Glidepath has well established markets and long term relationships with airport customers across North and South America, Asia, the Middle East, Africa, and New Zealand and Australia, where it is investing more resources.

“We have in our sights new business in China and India where air travel is continuing to grow very quickly and airports are being built or redeveloped to cater for demand, as well as in the Middle East, and we’ll be seeking to establish an in-market presence in these strategic markets to ensure we provide the best possible service and solutions for our customers,” Mr Stevens said.

“We’re in good shape to grow and support our customers as they grow.”

ENDS

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