He Guided 4,500 Engineers Through the Dell-EMC Merger. Now He Runs the Company That Invented the Jet Card.
Alan Walsh spent 20+ years at Dell and EMC before he ever set foot in private aviation. One of the biggest chapters of that career: leading the 4,500-person Global Support Center team through the EMC-Dell merger, across 12 locations and six continents. Today he's President of Sentient Jet, the company that invented the jet card category.
We sat down with Alan on the Strategy and Leadership Podcast to talk about what he learned leading change at that scale, and how it still shapes the way he runs a team today.
The credo: "If there's no precedent, you can't be wrong"
Alan's leadership philosophy comes down to three things: it's never about him, it's about the team; communicate the why constantly, not just in a slide deck; and give people room to try, fail, and pivot without penalty. That last one is the line he repeats most: if there's no precedent, you can't be wrong. Create the environment where people can push boundaries in a controlled way, and the team moves faster because of it.
Communicating change to thousands of people
You can't have an individual conversation with 4,500 people every day. Alan's approach: build a strong leadership team you trust to carry the message, then communicate constantly, in every format, at every level. During the EMC-Dell merger, that meant addressing the question on everyone's mind early and often: is my job safe? Silence on that question, he found, is worse than an uncomfortable answer.
The failure that reshaped how he leads
Alan was optimistic about the merger from the start; he could see the long-term opportunity clearly. What he underestimated was that the "why" didn't land the same way for everyone. Some people heard the vision and it just wasn't for them, and that was okay. The lesson: communicating a compelling why is necessary, but it isn't universal. Different people need different things to feel bought in, and some won't buy in at all.
From applied physics to private aviation
Alan's background in applied physics and industrial instrumentation gave him a foundational, hands-on understanding of technology that still shapes how he evaluates it today, including AI. His take: there's a real place for AI in private aviation (high-volume, low-complexity tasks like booking, and select back-office operations), but it has to be deployed thoughtfully, with specific use cases, not as a blanket rollout. Data security and the "bad information in, bad information out" risk keep him cautious.
The 15-second promise
Sentient Jet's service commitment: answer every phone call, 24 hours a day, in 15 seconds or less. They've held that standard for two years, and treat any deviation as something to investigate, not tolerate. It's a small, measurable discipline that Alan sees as central to what differentiates Sentient Jet in a competitive, passionate industry.
Want strategic clarity like this in your own organization? Work with SME Strategy on your strategic plan: smestrategy.net/strategic-planning-facilitator
Or connect with Anthony directly on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/anthonyctaylor604
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