US electric aviation start-up Eviation Aircraft is shaking up its leadership team by appointing long-time Embraer executive and Eve Air Mobility co-founder Andre Stein as its chief executive.
Stein is now tasked with executing Eviation’s plan to certificate and commercialise its nine-seat, all-electric Alice aircraft, the company said on 25 January.
Former CEO Gregory Davis told FlightGlobal that he is staying on as president of the Arlington, Washington-based developer and helping Stein transition into his new role.
Neither Stein nor Davis responded to requests for comment on the reasoning behind the major C-suite shake-up. The company also named former Cirrus Aircraft and Gulfstream executive Jeff Hurford as its chief financial officer.
Davis has been president of Eviation since May of 2021, according to his LinkedIn profile. He became interim CEO of Eviation after co-founder Omer Bar-Yohay stepped down in February 2022.
Davis was appointed to the permanent position several months later and oversaw the first and only flight of Alice.
A prototype of the clean-sheet commuter flew one sortie in September 2022 – a flight that lasted 8min – and has yet to get off the ground again. Davis maintained that the company was reviewing flight-test data and did not need to fly Alice again, though the aircraft remained airworthy.
Last year, Eviation revealed that Alice’s wings and fuselage were undergoing what it characterised as a modest redesign, which Eviation previously said would be completed early in 2024.
Eviation is pushing for certification of the aircraft later this decade.
“I have long admired the Alice – it’s a beautiful and innovative aircraft that is leading the way in all-electric flight,” Stein says. “I look forward to working with Eviation’s team to take Alice through the next phases of its development and bring it to market.”
Stein worked for Embraer for 25 years, including as head of strategy for the company’s experimental aircraft arm, EmbraerX, through which he helped launch air taxi developer Eve in 2020. He oversaw Eve’s listing on the US stock exchange in 2022.
He will now focus on advancing Eviation’s in-development aircraft, for which the company claims provisional orders worth a combined value of more than $5 billion.
“I think this… positioning of Mr. Stein is a great opportunity for Eviation to show it is serious in going to production,” Bar-Yohay tells FlightGlobal.
