Brandon C. Kaufmann is the Chief Executive Officer of Airborne Operations.
Mr. Kaufmann comes from a long heritage of distinguished military service, including a father who is a 4th generation graduate of West Point and served in both the US Army infantry as an Airborne Ranger and in combat as a Blackhawk pilot and Operations Officer. Mr. Kaufmann's paternal grandfather and two uncles served honorably in the US Marine Corps, his maternal grandparents both served in the US Navy, while his uncle and cousin served in the US Army, his cousin as a Green Beret with multiple combat tours in Afghanistan.
Mr. Kaufmann has held numerous positions throughout his career, ranging from the financial markets in New York City to an energy trade desk in California. One constant over his 15+ years in equity and energy markets has been his drive to streamline processes, optimize assets and create efficiencies in otherwise inefficient markets.
After graduation from Harvard University, Mr. Kaufmann worked as an Institutional Asset Management Associate prior to being promoted to Global Business Development Associate for AllianceBernstein in New York City. For AllianceBernstein, Mr. Kaufmann aided in the expansion of a global institutional client base that exceeded $24.5 billion and included such notable clients as Ford Motor, Verizon, IBM, DaimlerChrysler, Nomura amongst others.
Mr. Kaufmann began his career in energy on a power trading desk for Coral Energy for 4+ years. He was responsible for balancing the companies power plants and positions across the west coast, Rockies west, Canada south and Mexico north. In these power markets, Mr. Kaufmann would trade in an hourly and daily market around market conditions, day ahead and term power and gas positions, power generation costs, as well as natural gas prices. For Coral Energy Mr. Kaufmann would also trade around power positions related to hydroelectric generating facilities in Washington State and California, as well as managing the power output for two of the largest wind farms in the United States.
Mr. Kaufmann was responsible for Shell Oil’s largest customer base and natural gas trading desk on the west coast for 9+ years. Those responsibilities included pricing short and long term gas needs of customers, forecasting production, procurement and optimization of storage and transport, and balancing customer usage across the west. Customers ranged from entire cities, to oil refineries, power plants, food producers and hospitals.
Mr. Kaufmann was also a member on the supervisory board and strategy & investment committee at Clean Economic Energy in Vienna, Austria.
