Maunu brings 49 years of executive leadership in the global airline industry, having served in senior roles across Finnair, Oneworld Alliance, and IATA. His career spans building low-cost carriers as their CEO in Sweden and India and serving as IATA’s Regional Vice President for Asia Pacific. Throughout his career, he has led highly multicultural teams and driven commercial growth across diverse markets. Maunu holds an MBA from Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and studied marketing and business management at Aalto University and The Swedish Business School in Helsinki. For 30 years, he has been a dedicated student and advocate of Richard Lewis’s cross-cultural methodologies, applying these principles to enhance international business relationships and organizational effectiveness.

Cultural Background and Experience
Born and raised in Finland, Maunu has lived two-thirds of his 79 years across Sweden, Denmark, Austria, the United Kingdom, USA, Canada, India and Singapore which has shaped him into what he calls a “Global Nomad”. His extensive airline career exposed him to the complexities of multicultural leadership, from managing country and regional operations for Finnair to dealing with Governments, alliances and commercial agreements in the global arena. As the CEO of two low-cost airlines in vastly different markets, Sweden and India, he navigated contrasting cultural approaches to business, customer service and team dynamics. His study of body language at the University of Vienna added another dimension to his understanding of human communication across cultures. Maunu’s deep commitment to cross-cultural awareness stems from his conviction in the power and benefits of open-minded, productive interaction between people and nations, a principle he has practiced throughout his remarkable international career.