“It was pretty boring… until Landing Gears came along. It was love at first sight.”
Karolis Jurkevicius joined the team in 2018 with more than 15 years of experience in sales and project management. Since joining, Karolis is the one who introduced the LDG leasing service, increased warehouse capacity 10 times, and was announced as the best supplier by our biggest customers.
Your background: education/previous industries you worked in/the last position before joining aviation:
In one guise or another, all of my life I have been working in sales. I must say, even though I was always far more interested in work than studies, my transport engineering education helped me a lot during my career considering the industries I worked for. Before aviation, it was used trucks, then construction machinery.
I landed my first aviation job in 2016 and was involved in component sales, right up until my first Landing Gear project – it was then that everything fell into place.
It happened that I had to learn practically everything alone, in my previous company LDG products proved unpopular – it was complex and took much time to get results. However, for me, I found it very interesting, also it has proven beneficial for me and my future career.
Why aviation?
I never even dreamt of aviation. The target was to get into an international company with an active global market. Then, a colleague of mine offered me an opportunity to give it a try, and here I am. I am motivated by the value of deals – often, decisions in this unique industry rely on speed and not price.
Why APOC?
After a couple of years in aviation, I wanted to quit. I felt burned out and needed a break. And then I met Max in the bar during one of the conferences. I liked his overall approach to business and life. He gave me full freedom and responsibilities, exactly what I was looking for.
Why should a customer come to APOC?
We always aim to deliver what is promised and provide the highest quality of service possible. We are not perfect – we are an organism and are learning by doing. We own what we sell. We take risks so our customers don’t have to. We are always playing with open cards.
Hobbies/passion/motto:
Motorcycles. Cannot work without music in my ears. Sports – watching and playing.
And the motto: F1= -F2. Newton’s Law. For every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Act the way you want others to act with you. Give what you expect to receive from others. Everything I do, I expect the same from others.
What keeps you going?
Family. Freedom to travel. Constant movement forward. Every day with every new client, with every new meeting, I learn something new, and every day I realise that there is so much left to learn. I will leave aviation when there will be nothing left to learn… which is, never.
A funny/motivational/encouraging story from your work:
During one exhibition, I bumped into a guy and had a 10-minute chat with him. That conversation brought us our most profitable customer. So, every meeting counts. That is why online platforms will never replace face-to-face meetings.
