Kenny Dichter is an American entrepreneur and the CEO of privately held

aviation Aviation includes the activities surrounding mechanical flight and the aircraft industry. ''Aircraft'' includes fixed-wing and rotary-wing types, morphable wings, wing-less lifting bodies, as well as lighter-than-air craft such as hot air ...

company,

Wheels Up A wheel is a circular component that is intended to rotate on an axle bearing. The wheel is one of the key components of the wheel and axle which is one of the six simple machines. Wheels, in conjunction with axles, allow heavy objects to be ...

. He also co-founded Alphabet City Sports Records,

Marquis Jet NetJets Inc. is an American company that sells Fractional ownership of aircraft, fractional ownership shares in private business jets. Founded as Executive Jet Airways in 1964, it was later renamed Executive Jet Aviation. NetJets became the ...

, and Tequila Avión.

Career

Alphabet City Sports Records

After graduating from the University of Wisconsin in 1990, Dichter founded Alphabet City Sports Records with friend

Jesse Itzler Jesse Itzler is an American entrepreneur, author, and rapper.Famil ...

/ The label focused on creating and selling songs that were frequently heard in sports stadiums and arenas. The firm was eventually sold to

SFX Entertainment LiveStyle, Inc. is a Los Angeles-based live events conglomerate founded by media entrepreneur Robert F. X. Sillerman. The company was formed in June 2012 as SFX Entertainment—the new incarnation of Sillerman's previous company of the same name ...

in 1998 for $4.3 million in cash and stock.

Marquis Jets

Dichter founded Marquis Jets in 2001, the first fractional card jet program. By 2007, the firm was turning over more than $700 million per year from its 3,500 customers. In November 2010, Dichter sold Marquis Jet to

NetJets NetJets Inc. is an American company that sells fractional ownership shares in private business jets. Founded as Executive Jet Airways in 1964, it was later renamed Executive Jet Aviation. NetJets became the first private business jet chart ...

, a subsidiary of

Warren Buffett Warren Edward Buffett ( ; born August 30, 1930) is an American business magnate, investor, and philanthropist. He is currently the chairman and CEO of Berkshire Hathaway. He is one of the most successful investors in the world and has a net ...

Berkshire Hathaway Berkshire Hathaway Inc. () is an American multinational conglomerate holding company headquartered in Omaha, Nebraska, United States. Its main business and source of capital is insurance, from which it invests the float (the retained premiu ...

Tequila Avión

Tequila Avión, a brand of

tequila Tequila (; ) is a distilled beverage made from the blue agave plant, primarily in the area surrounding the city of Tequila northwest of Guadalajara, and in the Jaliscan Highlands ('' Los Altos de Jalisco'') of the central western Mexican s ...

, was founded by Dichter and Ken Austin. The brand was named the 'Best Tequila in the World' and 'Best White Spirit in the World' at the 2012

San Francisco World Spirits Competition The San Francisco World Spirits Competition was founded in 2001 by Anthony Dias Blue as an off-shoot of the San Francisco International Wine Competition. It assesses hundreds of entrants annually (1,407 in 2013 from 63 countries) with tastings inv ...

Wheels Up

A few years after the sale of Marquis Jets, Dichter re-entered the private aviation industry by founding Wheels Up. Rather than a fractional card program, Wheels Up is a membership-based business that charges users per flight hour without spending requirements or time commitments.

References