Learn more about Aireon from the Aireon team themselves. This series, “A Day in The Life,” will allow the Aireon team to speak first-hand about their experiences, views, and future outlook on space-based ADS-B. Aireon is proud of our extraordinary team of experts and aim to highlight them in this blog series. We hope you enjoy meeting the Aireon team and further understand our strong commitment to aviation.
My name is Seth Allyn, and I joined Aireon in March 2017 as the Corporate Controller. I am originally from Upstate New York and moved down to the Washington, D.C. area in the early 1990’s to attend The George Washington University. I majored in Accounting and after graduation got a job as an auditor at PwC (at the time, known as Price Waterhouse). Following PwC, I committed 18 years to the Advisory Board Company in many roles as the company grew from a 300 to 5,000 person company.
As I searched for new opportunities, I had hoped to return to working for a smaller company again. When the Aireon role was presented to me, the company’s mission, corporate culture and bright future really piqued my interest. I knew my experiences working for a company from its early beginnings through its growing pains would be valuable to a rising company like Aireon.
My role here at Aireon is to oversee the day-to-day operations of the accounting function. I work closely with the accounting team to ensure that our accounting books are kept in accordance with Generally Accepted Accounting Principles (GAAP). This includes general ledger transactions, accounts payable, payroll and expense reimbursements. I also serve as the main point of contact for our financial auditors.
We are also kept busy with Aireon’s unique requirement to keep a second set of ledger books in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS). We are required to keep a set of IFRS books because Aireon’s owners and investors are primarily international entities. Although IFRS rules are similar to U.S. GAAP rules, there are some policy differences that keep us on our toes.
Aireon’s many teams are working diligently for “go-live” in 2018, even the finance and accounting team. We continue to define the policy, process and systems needed to efficiently invoice our customers for data usage and properly record our revenue transactions.
The main thing that I have learned during my short time here at Aireon that has truly surprised me is how antiquated some of the current technologies are in terms of providing air traffic surveillance. This really highlights to me just how important space-based ADS-B is to the future of the aviation industry, as well as the work Aireon is doing to make it a reality.
