CNN published a profile this morning titled “The man who decides when and where your next flight will be going.”

That man happens to be Neil Chernoff, Chief Planning Officer of British Airways.

Neil also happens to be one of my closest lifelong friends.

(With a true expert’s humility, he didn’t even mention that this piece was coming out when we spoke yesterday.)

If you’ve ever sat in an airport and wondered, “who decided my flight to San Diego needed to be at 2:35pm, and that there would be this many people needing to go there” - the answer is Neil, and probably less than a dozen other experts in the world who understand network planning as intimately as he does.

The profile does a good job of unpacking the pieces of the complex puzzle that is his and his team’s ongoing remit — balancing travel demand, airport slots, connection timing, crew staffing, scheduled aircraft maintenance, geopolitical events, supply shocks, airspace closures…

And what’s so fascinating is that all these moving parts just sit implanted in Neil's head. After decades in the industry, he just knows the knock-on effect of any little change in an airline’s schedule.

This is objectively impressive — trust me, I’ve spent many hours picking his brain out of pure curiosity — but it’s also no different than the deep domain expertise you built up in your time in corporate.

Just like Neil, you’ve been through enough roles, companies, and crises that you, too, have developed the perspective to make sense of what would be overwhelmingly complex to your non-expert client.

Just like Neil can rattle off the business rationale for putting the world’s largest passenger plane on a relatively short flight from London to Boston, you, too, can explain:

• How tariffs could work their way through your client’s P&L
• or the cascading impact of a flawed or undercooked people strategy
• or the through-line from investing in a niche marketing channel to building long-term brand value

Just like Neil, you see the big picture and all the little pieces that make it up.

Probably unlike Neil, you haven’t had a major media outlet spotlight the niche lens you’ve built out for yourself over your career. (Yet.)

But that’s ok, as an independent consultant serving 5-15 clients per year, you don’t need that level of attention.

You just need to ask yourself, what do I see clearly that others don’t — and who needs to see what I see when I look at their business through my lens.

Then figure out how you preview that lens to those who need it most.

💡

-Wes

P.S. I'm looking for two case study clients for the next iteration of my expertise visualization service.

If you know anyone who fits this bill:

• Former executive (~20+ years in corporate)
• Now testing out consulting on their own
• Got some early gigs, but now the market's just not 'getting' what they do

I'd love to have a 15-min chat with them just to gauge fit.

A simple email intro would be much appreciated. 🙏