GCW Consulting LLC

Mo Garfinkle is the Chairman and CEO of GCW, and a founding shareholder. Mo is responsible for the overall strategic vision and growth of GCW. The vision is straightforward: quality work, keen responsiveness to clients' needs, ingenuity and creativity in approaching and solving issues, and highly effective, yet simply posited, message delivery, all performed by seasoned industry experts who craft practical workable solutions in a highly collegial environment and who have a passion about "winning" for the client and want to have fun in doing so. Mo understands the challenge of translating this straightforward vision into reality.

Mo's aviation roots date to 1973, first as a lawyer, then as an owner of a U.S. post-deregulation airline (Air America), then as a consultant and lawyer/consultant. Over the years, Mo has advised on most of the significant events and transactions in the airline industry -- Special Counsel to Pan American's Creditors' Committee on the sale of Pan American's international routes; the leveraged buyouts of the late 1980s; the Singapore Airlines-Delta cross-equity swap; alliances in Europe, Asia, Africa, and North America; bilateral and aeropolitical advice throughout the world; Asian Open Skies; air service development for airports and communities; originator of the idea and first attempt to buy an international route for a community; and DOT competitive route cases and alliance/antitrust proceedings.

From 1973 to 1999, Mo was an attorney with the Galland Kharasch law firm, where, for most of the 1990s, he was the managing partner. At Galland Kharasch, Mo formed GKMG Consulting Services, an aviation consulting platform. Under Mo's leadership, GKMG became one of the largest aviation-only consulting firms in the United States. In 1999, GKMG was sold to a publicly-traded consulting firm, which, then, was bought by an even larger privately-held consulting partnership. Realizing that "bigger was not always better" for clients or entrepreneurially-minded owners, Mo left that organization to form GCW Consulting together with some old and some new colleagues who fit the GCW vision.

Mo graduated from University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School of Finance and Commerce in 1970, and earned a law degree at Georgetown University Law Center in 1973. He currently sits on the board of HMSHost, provider food, beverage and retail concessions to airports around the world.

Speaking Topics: Mo comments regularly on all facets of commercial aviation, most notably the spread of low-fare airlines around the world, alliances, civil aviation reforms in China and other emerging markets, airline structural reform and air service development. Mo travels extensively and can be best reached at mogarfinkle@gcwconsulting.com or via cell phone at 202-359-2107.

Mo's wife Stephanie was an elementary school teacher, had her own children's gift business and since 1990, has been a professional tour guide in Washington, DC (Tours available upon request).

Stephanie and Mo have three children -- Matt, Julie, and Corki, their English Cocker. Matt, who is finishing up a masters program at George Washington University in human resource development and training, has great interpersonal skills and wants to become a corporate trainer. Julie graduated University of Michigan, majoring in psychology and Spanish, spent a year in Buenos Aires "perfecting her Spanish," and was accepted into the psychology PhD program at Arizona State. Julie wants to practice psychology in the Latino community. Corki, the former mascot of GKMG's holiday greeting cards and the true love of the family, attended obedience school where she learned how to make the family obey her every whim.

Mo likes adventure/sightseeing holidays, snow skiing and Arizona. His is partial to "soul" music, and favors The Four Tops, the Isley Brothers and the Beatles. His favorite movies are "Dr. Strangelove" and any "Pink Panther" flick (obviously, a Peter Sellers fan). Mo is partial to Asian and Southwestern foods. His favorite piece of wisdom (learned from working with Southwest's Herb Kelleher): Always take your customers and clients seriously, but never yourself.