Mr Gates has specialized in aviation related law throughout his career. His clients include airlines, airports, ground handlers, financiers, manufacturers and their insurers. His practice has involved lead counsel representation of industry representatives domestically and internationally and has been involved in more than 50 international aviation disasters through his career. From 1997-2003 he was senior partner of the leading boutique aviation law firm Beaumont and Son (which subsequently merged with Clyde and Co) and in 2003 founded Gates and Partners which before merging with another UK law firm in June 2013, employed 60 lawyers specializing in various aspects of aviation law, with offices in 5 jurisdictions worldwide.

From 1998 – 2013, Mr Gates was the Legal Adviser to the International Union of Aviation Insurers (IUAI), a trade association comprised of the world’s leading aviation insurers. Mr Gates represented the IUAI as the principal observer on behalf of the IUAI at the diplomatic conference resulting in the Montreal Convention of 1999 on carrier liability to passengers, at the diplomatic conference in Montreal for the Conventions on Surface Damage and at the legal committee meeting in 2013 discussing changes to the Tokyo Convention on Offences Committed on Board Aircraft 1963. From 2006-2016 he was Legal Adviser to the British Air Transport Association,

Mr Gates is currently the CEO of Gates Aviation Ltd which provides a range of services to the aerospace industry in a variety of areas including dispute resolution, risk management, and disaster preparedness/response.  He is also Senior Vice President of Legal Affairs at Kenyon International Emergency Services, legal adviser of the European Regions Airlines Association and a member of the legal advisory committee of the Flight Safety Foundation and the Shanghai Dispute Resolution Centre. Current projects include arbitrating a lease finance dispute as sole ICC arbitrator, disaster response advice for major Chinese manufacturer, managing liability claims in Italy and Brazil for European manufacturer, and advising European airline legal department on responsibilities in a disaster.

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Captain Jo Gillespie joined Gates Aviation from the position of Vice President – Flight Safety at Emirates Airline in Dubai, with responsibility for operational safety oversight of more than 100 aircraft, 2000 pilots and 13,000 cabin crew. He was also a qualified Type Rating Instructor (TRI) in the mixed fleet flying (MFF) environment of the A330/A340 fleet.

His thirty years experience as a pilot have encompassed military service, general and business aviation, and worldwide scheduled and charter airline operations, and included over fifteen years of aviation safety management. He has been actively engaged in accident and incident investigations, flight data analysis, safety management and air safety reporting programmes, introduction and development of report management and safety information systems and the promotion of safety improvement throughout the industry.

Jo has for several years been chairman of the Gulf Flight Safety Committee and is a member of the International Advisory Committee of the Flight Safety Foundation, as well as being a Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society.

Ron has many years of front line management and senior management experience in the commercial aviation industry. Ron held a number of senior management positions within BA, including appointments in operations and maintenance planning, business development, customer service and operations, emergency planning and business continuity, ground operations compliance and corporate security.

Ron dealt with a number of corporate incidents, both complex and routine. He was also responsible for launching ‘business continuity’ as a business discipline within the company and for developing robust emergency plans spanning a range of one hundred and sixty five airports in eighty five countries, many with their own cultural issues and complexities. He was responsible for compliance and policy development related to ground safety and security within all ground operations areas of the business.

As Head of Aviation Security in the post-9/11 security environment, his responsibilities included a complete review of security measures applied to the airline’s global network and covered development of appropriate aviation security policy within the company which aimed to deliver UK and host state compliance with regulatory requirements; the provision of timely security advice and guidance to operational departments; auditing of line station and line management performance; and compliance with the required security measures.

With two other Directors, Ron launched the business in 2006 and has been privileged to undertake many complex projects on behalf of a number of prestigious clients and a range of smaller organisations. The diversity of such projects has been both challenging and stimulating and has spanned industry disciplines, from emergency planning, through operational and aviation security projects to purchasing of aviation fuel and aircraft.

In 1992, Ron was awarded the M.B.E. in H.M. the Queen’s Birthday Honours List for “services to aviation”.

Captain Laurie Mitchell is currently employed as Training Captain in a major middle eastern airline. Laurie’s 33 years of flying experience began in the South African Air Force, after which he moved to South African Airways as a First Officer where he flew B737s, B747-200/300/400 and A320 (and a JU-52).

After moving to the middle east, he gained a wide bodied command on A310 and A300`s. Subsequently he moved into the training department to become a Training Captain on the A330 and A340-300/500, B777 series and the A380.

Additionally, he has been actively involved in simulation analysis and testing (A330/A340/B777) and the design of training and test programs for use during flight evaluation.