Christopher Salley

As a President, Christopher Salley brings over 15 years of business aviation experience in analytics, technology, sales, fuel contract negotiations, and business operations to FBO Partners. In his role with FBO Partners, Mr. Salley leverages his expertise in direct sales and analytics with his deep industry knowledge to drive both market share and profitability to FBO Partners’ client FBOs.

Salley began his aviation career as a market intel analyst for companies like STS Component Solutions & Dassault Falcon Jet. His interest in targeted sales through the usage of data and analytics eventually lead him to CharterX, prior to its acquisition by the Avinode Group. At Avinode, Salley became a founding employee of SchedAero product, eventually overseeing a portfolio of more than 130 customers. Salley later supported Wyvern’s safety auditing program, helping to develop both the IS-BAH (FBO Auditing) and EXACT (Unmanned Aerial System) product lines. Upon completion of his graduate degree, Salley joined one of the oldest, most-respected independent FBOs in the country, National Jets at Fort Lauderdale-Hollywood International Airport (KFLL), where he was responsible for sales & marketing for both the FBO division and the Part 145 Repair Station. While at National Jets, Salley added more than one million gallons of new fuel business, established a new ad hoc airline and cargo ground handling program- adding new business in the form of sports charter and cargo freight handling- and maintained over 100% hangar efficiency, all at one of the most competitive FBO markets in the country. With his strong technology background, Salley also oversaw the fuel supplier transition to an unbranded business model, negotiated merchant services to use a third-party provider (card processing) and deployed the X1 FBO Operations & Point-of-Sale (POS) software as the product’s launch customer in 2018.

Chris’ talents are simply unmatched in the FBO community, particularly around commercial go-to-market pricing strategies, representation of our client’s fuel and hangar sales approaches, technology implementation, and commercial diligence. Since joining FBO Partners in 2019, Salley has been involved in nearly all of the Firm’s projects and was a party to the FBO industry’s largest transaction. As Chris leads the firm into the future, he continues to focus on evolving the business with the needs of its customers.

Based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Salley is the Vice President of the South Florida Business Aviation Association (SFBAA), a regional charity & lobbying group partnered with NBAA. Salley holds two bachelor’s degrees from Jacksonville University’s Aviation & Business schools with an MBA-A from Embry-Riddle. As a glutton for punishment, he only chooses hobbies that are extremely time consuming and mentally challenging like marine biology, digital photography, IT security & governance.