Overview
Registration for this event is closed.
Bloomberg, Cornell Tech, and Tech:NYC invite you to join us for the latest installment of the Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg series, featuring Rob Wiesenthal, co-founder and CEO of BLADE, in conversation with Scarlet Fu of Bloomberg Television.
Over the past decade, consumer access to transportation has become digital, mobile, and on-demand. Cars, shuttles, bicycles, and scooters can all be booked or rented simply by tapping on a screen. New York City-based BLADE takes this transformation of transit to new heights, literally, providing helicopter, private jet, and seaplane rides that anyone can easily book on their smartphone.
Founded by Wiesenthal and Steve Martocci in 2014, BLADE offers a regular schedule of flights, as well as the option for customers to charter their own on-demand flights to anywhere. Best-known locally for its service from Manhattan to New York City-area airports and the Hamptons, BLADE can reduce travel times from hours to minutes. In addition to airport trips and transfers, it now operates regular routes in several major cities around the country, serving destinations that range from weekend getaways and weddings to sporting events and music festivals. And, with the planned launch of BLADE India in April, it will expand internationally for the first time.
We hope you’ll join us for this conversation, in which Wiesenthal and Fu will discuss his vision for BLADE’s future, how it has expanded the market for private flights, its plans to make urban air mobility a mass-market product, and also why a company known for helicopters and private jets offers its employees free electric scooters.
Twitter: @TechAtBloomberg
Facebook: Cornell Tech @ Bloomberg
Agenda
- 5:30PM
Cocktail reception begins
- 6:00PM
Doors close, conversation starts
- 6:45PM
Audience Q&A with Cornell Tech students
- 7:00PM
Networking and hors d’oeuvres to follow
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PLEASE NOTE: Seating is limited and registered attendees will be seated on a first come, first served basis. Doors close promptly at the top of the hour. Individuals arriving late may be turned away from the building. No walk-ins allowed.
Questions: techevents@bloomberg.net
Featured speakers
Rob Wiesenthal
Rob Wiesenthal is the co-founder and CEO of BLADE, a digitally powered-aviation company and the largest arranger of helicopter flights for civilian travel in the United States.
Wiesenthal incubated BLADE in early 2014. Since then, BLADE has become the most internationally-recognized brand in helicopter transport to city centers and has proven to grow the size of the short distance aviation market in the areas in which it operates. Over 75% of BLADE’s first-time helicopter passengers have never flown in a helicopter before flying BLADE.
Prior to launching BLADE, until June 2012 Wiesenthal held positions as Executive Vice president and Chief Financial Officer of Sony Corporation of America, Executive Vice President, Chief Strategy Officer, Sony Entertainment Inc., and Group Executive, Sony Corporation, leading corporate development, and mergers and acquisitions. From 2012 to June 2015, Wiesenthal served as Chief Operating Officer of Warner Music Group.