Meet the team
Andrew
Watts
Founder and Director
Having completed officer training at RMA Sandhurst and further training at the Army Staff College, Andrew’s 20 year career in the British Army included training as a helicopter pilot and also undertaking a variety of demanding staff appointments. He saw service in Germany, UK and Cyprus, an attachment with the Special Forces and active service in numerous tours in Northern Ireland and Bosnia.
He left to train as an airline pilot flying Boeing 767 / 777 internationally. He left his 10 year airline career to pursue crisis response work and joined Crux Risk as Operations Director. Crux Risk, specialises in the management and resolution of crises associated with kidnapping, extortion, hijacking, maritime piracy, wrongful detention, evacuations and strategic risk assessments. He deployed on maritime-piracy , land-based kidnap and illegal detention cases in Somalia, Kenya, China, UAE and Vietnam. He was involved in case management, negotiation, operational planning and delivery of air-supply drops to vessels held hijacked by pirates.
He transitioned back into commercial aviation as CEO of Hevilift Malaysia, a remote based aviation services operator providing charter solutions for the transportation of personnel and equipment in a variety of fields, including the Malaysian offshore oil and gas sector.
Having founded Eden Consulting in 2012, the Eden team was most recently contracted to develop and implement a ground up aviation operation in support of the Congo River Development Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. When built this will be the largest infrastructure project in the world.
Graham Winterbottom
associate
As a generalist in aviation, Graham has an unusual blend and breadth of experience. As a military aviator he worked in four Navies. He has set-up and overseen Fixed Wing, Rotary Wing and Assisted-Lift operations. He has experience in the design, manufacture and certification of new aircraft types. He has conducted Air Operations start-ups in Asia and Africa and most recently in support of the Inga Dam project in the DRC. He is a specialist in aviation contract development and implementation including the development of the associated procedure manuals and their implementation. He has managed offshore aviation support operations for a number of Oil Majors. He is experienced in Hazard risk assessment and Safety Case development. He has had oversight of aviation ground infrastructure development projects and the associated training of support personnel. He has had participation in hundreds of safety reviews and several accident investigations. He has also worked with Government Agencies in Indonesia, his country of residence, in the development of ISR operations. He has conversational fluency in the English, French and Malayu languages.
Anthony Rodger
Associate
Anthony is an aviation and security professional with recent experience in the DRC working with Eden Consulting on a contract with Fortescue Future Industries to develop and implement Aviation Risk Management and Emergency Response Procedures for the Congo River Development Project in the Democratic Republic of Congo. It entailed conducting on-ground security and risk assessments, detailed risk analysis, development of robust and comprehensive SOPs, ERPs and tabletop exercises to practice procedures.
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Prior to that Anthony flew for 10 years in Africa, primarily in Nigeria, where he spent 5 years with Bristow helicopters, eventually being appointed as Chief Pilot for the Chevron Escravos Operation. In 2015, Anthony moved to Malaysia and joined an Air Operation at early start-up. Over the subsequent 6 years he gained the knowledge to take a fledgling operation up to the highest international standards (Oil, Gas and Petroleum), including developing a Flight Safety culture, writing and implementing the Safety Management System, creating workable Air Operations Manuals through to designing and implementing an effective Flight Data Monitoring programme.
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Earlier in his career, Anthony served for 16 years with the Royal Air Force gaining considerable operational experience in Belize, the Gulf War, United Nations in southern Iraq as well as a 3 year stint with UK Special Forces.
Richard McGready
Associate
Richard has over 25 years’ experience in the airline industry as both a pilot, aviation consultant, in training and aviation management. He has 12,000 hours experience, flown 12 aircraft types and is a Type Rating Instructor (TRI) and Type Rating Examiner (TRE). Richard’s commercial experience covers aircraft procurement, airline start-up in the Democratic Republic of Congo, aviation projects in the Far East including introduction of a A320 flight simulator to EASA standards into Thailand.
Richard has setup an EASA standard sustainable international flight and aerospace academy and established an aviation English school for Avianca in Bogota. He has wide experience in aviation sales and marketing experience in USA and the Far East.and has experience in formulating business plans and tendering.
Richard is a fluent Spanish speaker and has a working knowledge of French.
Matthew Burnford
Crisis/Risk Management Advisor
Matthew is an adviser to Eden Consulting on Risk and Crisis Management. He was a founding partner of Crux Risk and has been involved in advising clients on crisis management issues since 1993.
Key areas of his expertise are in prevention, response and management of kidnap-for-ransom, malicious product extortion & contamination, extortion, maritime-piracy and unlawful detention. He has worked extensively throughout the world with particular experience in Europe, the Balkans, Latin America, East Africa and the Asia Pacific regions.
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Matthew previously served as a Commissioned Officer in the British Army serving in Germany, Northern Ireland and Cyprus. His experience includes working for international missions under the auspices of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in the Balkans and in global security and risk management consultancies such as Control Risks, Pinkerton, Armor Group, NYA International, G4S and Crux Risk.
Matthew has commercial experience in a number of industry sectors, a Diploma in Business Administration and an MBA from the University of Edinburgh.