Our People
Richard Mintern
Chief Operating Officer, The Monarch Group
Managing Director, Monarch Aircraft Engineering
Richard has many years of experience in the travel and aviation industries, having previously held positions at Britannia Airways and British Aerospace before joining Monarch, holding various posts within both engineering and operations.
From 1998 Richard was responsible for all aspects of information technology and communications, including joint responsibility for developing e-commerce opportunities through monarch.co.uk. In 2006 Richard became Group Chief Information Officer responsible for all aspects of information technology across the Monarch Group.
In November 2008 Richard was appointed to the position of Managing Director, Monarch Aircraft Engineering Ltd and Technical Director, Monarch Airlines, before being promoted to his current role of Chief Operating Officer for the Monarch Group in July 2010. Richard is today responsible for overseeing the business performance of all Group divisions, whilst also continuing his role as Managing Director, Monarch Aircraft Engineering, for a transitional period until a replacement is appointed.
Laurie Diffey
Group IT Director
Laurie has worked in IT for over 20 years across a number of industries, and is responsible for all aspects of information technology across the Monarch Travel Group.
Having spent the 1990s in various consultancy roles, Laurie spent four years in Auckland as Head of IT for Air New Zealand’s low cost subsidiary Freedom Air. Laurie joined Monarch in 2004, working in several IT posts until his appointment to the board in February 2009.
Pauline Prow
Group Human Resources Director
Pauline is responsible for all aspects of HR for all the businesses within the Monarch Group. She joined Monarch in June 2009 initially as HR Director for the Airline and Engineering businesses moving to the expanded Group HR Director role in May 2010.
Prior to joining Monarch, Pauline had spent 30 years in the automotive sector with General Motors (GM) where she held a range of senior HR Management positions within the warehousing, manufacturing and corporate divisions both in the UK and Europe.
Mick Adams
Maintenance and Operations Director
Mick is responsible for all operational elements of the business, including Base and Line Maintenance, component overhaul, management and procurement, and also leads the company's Safety Management team.
Mick has worked for Monarch twice - his first stint with the company spanned 18 years, with a period working for Harrods Aviation serving as Technical Director, Maintenance Sales Director and Operations Director, before returning in 2005 to head up Monarch's Aircraft Maintenance division.
He is a fully licensed aircraft engineer trained originally in avionics and is also a member of the Institute of Directors and a Fellow of the RAes. Having worked in the military, test, business and commercial aviation sectors, Mick has a very broad knowledge base and has lectured at several aviation and safety-related conferences, universities and training facilities.
Derek Gibson
Sales and Marketing Director
Derek began his career as an apprentice with Monarch in 1981 and worked as an aircraft engineer on the Monarch fleet until 1987.
He then took up several sales roles outside of the aviation sector before returning to Monarch in 1991 as a Sales Engineer, moving to a more senior sales role until joining KLM UK as Head of Engineering Marketing and Sales between 1996 and 1999.
He returned to Monarch in 2000 as Sales and Marketing Manager and in 2003 was promoted to Commercial Director. 2006 saw him take on the position of Operations Director with sister company Monarch Technical Support before his role was expanded to cover the leadership and development of the sales division in 2009 by becoming Sales and Marketing Director.
Wal Mackey
Finance Director
Wal Mackey had nine years with "Big Four" accountancy firm KPMG in Auckland, Sydney and London, mainly involved in audits & acquisitions.
He held a number of Finance Director positions before his appointment at Monarch Aircraft Engineering Limited in February 2010, including nine years at engineering group Atlas Copco and three years at printing and packaging group Boxes Holdings Limited.
