Tony Fernandes

Tan Sri Anthony Francis Fernandes commonly known as Tony Fernandes was named the
Businessman of the Year on Forbes Asia Magazine dated December 20, 2010. He is the first
Malaysian and Southeast Asian to receive the award. This successful businessman is the founder of
Tune Air Sdn. Bhd., who launched the first budget no-frills airline known as AirAsia. Now, Tony
Fernandes is acting as the Non-Independent Non-Executive Director of AirAsia Berhad. This
Malaysian entrepreneur has make many peoples dream come true with his Now everyone can flyAirAsia.
Tony Fernandes was born on 30th April 1964 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His father was
from Goa and his mother, from Kristang named Ena Dorothy Fernandes who was a businesswoman.
When Tony Fernandes was 12 he went to a boarding school in England. He studied in Epsom College
from 1977 to 1983 and graduated from the London School of Economics in 1987. Fernandes started
his career as an accountant but auditing drove him completely nuts so after six months he wrote to
every record company because he was a musician as well. What kind of music did he play? That
depends on the price of oil, he jokes, I play blues if the oil price is high and rock n roll if its low.
Later he became the financial controller for Richard Branson's Virgin Records in London from 1987
to 1989.
Tony Fernandes admitted as Associate Member of the Association of Chartered Certified
Accountants (ACCA) in 1991 and became Fellow Member of it in 1996. He joined Warner Music
International London as Senior Financial Analyst (1989-1992). Later became Managing Director of
Warner Music Malaysia as the youngest managing director. In the year 1992 to 2001 Tony Fernandes
was the South East Asian regional vice president for Warner Music Group. However, when Time
Warner Inc announced its merger with America Online Inc Tony Fernandes took his first step towards
airline companies.
Mr Fernandes and some friends bought Air Asia from a Malaysian government-owned
company in September 2001 for a mere 25 pence. That time Air Asia was in big debt. However, they
were good marketing people from the music business. They halve the fare and there's a huge
enormous untapped market. Like the airlines in western world, Tony introduced short hail low cost
carrier. Fernandes mortgaged his home and sank his savings to acquire the company, comprising two
ageing Boeing 737-300 jets (9M-AAA and 9M-AAB) and US$11 million (RM40 million) worth of
debts, for 26 US cents (one ringgit), and transformed it into an industry player. In 2002, he started
with two planes and now 86 aircrafts flying 30million people around the world.
Tony Fernandes did not stop on that. Later he started a hotel chain on the no frills concept. He
became the team principal of the Caterham F1 Formula One team which began racing in 2010 as the
Lotus Racing. On 18 August 2011 he bought 66% share of famous football club named Queens Park
Rangers. He have shown interest and succeeded in many sectors. He owned many awards like
Malaysia CEO of the year 2003 by American Express and Airline Business Strategy Award 2005
and Low Cost Leadership by Airline Business and he was also named Asia Pacific Aviation
Executive by the Centre for Asia Pacific Aviation (CAPA) for the year 2004 and 2005. Tan Sri Tony
Fernandes was ranked number 19 on the Forbes list of Malaysias Richest Man with his net wealth of
US$ 700 million and still increasing .