Our Executive Team

Executive Chairman

Frank Argenbright Jr.

Frank Argenbright Jr. is Executive Chairman, legendary founder, visionary, and strategic leader at Unifi. Under Argenbright’s leadership, Unifi has become the #1 provider of Aviation Services in the country. Frank, along with his various companies, have won numerous awards and recognitions during his career: Ernst & Young, Entrepreneur of the Year Finalist in 1989 and 1990; and Winner in 1997 and 2009; Atlanta Journal-Constitution, Georgia 100-Best of Business in 1998, 1999 and 2000; Argenbright Security, Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies in Atlanta in 1992, 1995, 1996, 1998 and 1999; AHL Services, Top 50 Fastest Growing Companies in Atlanta in 1998 and 1999; AirServ, #1 Fastest Growing Private Company in Atlanta in 2005; #17 in 2006 and #37 in 2007; SecurAmerica, #1 Fastest Growing Private Company in Atlanta in both 2007 and 2008, #2 Best Places to Work in 2007, and #2 Fastest Growing Company in 2009; Georgia Trend Magazine, #1 Middle-Market Fastest Growing Companies. Argenbright is also a leader who deeply cares about his employees – showing them that they are valued and appreciated while inspiring them to go above and beyond the call of duty.

Group Chief Executive Officer

Karan Ishwar

Karan Ishwar has been with the Argenbright Group of Companies since 2014, when he started working as an intern in the M&A team for SecurAmerica LLC. He is currently CEO of Argenbright Holdings – Parent Company of the Argenbright Group of Companies to include Unifi and other businesses and initiatives of the Group. During this time Karan has led the Group to grow from a single service regional business with 75mn in annual revenue to a multi service national provider with over $1.2bn in annual revenue.

In his role, Karan oversees all aspects of strategy, business, finance, technology and M&A functions for the group. He has extensive knowledge and a deep understanding of labor-intensive services-based industries and is constantly looking for innovative solutions to improve the lives of hourly wage employees. He is also deeply passionate about technology, focusing on the identification of technology trends that impact service-based companies.

Karan has a strong professional track record in the areas of Corporate Development, Investment Banking, Corporate Banking and Technology across diverse organizations, ranging from large and industry-leading companies to startup ventures in their early days. He has also had the opportunity of working in multiple countries across Asia, Europe and North America, and brings a global perspective to the team.

Chief Executive Officer

Gautam Thakkar

Gautam has more than two decades of diverse global experience serving multiple boards and working with platform and technology-enabled businesses, shared services, outsourcing, consulting, M&A, and business development across various industry verticals. He has worked in start-ups, growth, and turnaround environments in services, technology, and software platform businesses across large public and PE-backed private companies. He has lived and worked across Asia, Europe, and North America. Gautam is responsible for the overall Unifi business.

Chief Operating Officer

Greg Kennedy

Greg started his storied career in airport operations in 1985 as a part-time ramp agent for Western Air Lines, (later purchased by Delta) in Salt Lake City. He quickly progressed to take on positions of increasing responsibility ultimately managing airport operations as Senior Vice President overseeing Delta’s five largest hubs in Atlanta, Cincinnati, Los Angeles, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Detroit, and Salt Lake City. Previously, he led ATL, Delta’s largest and the world’s busiest hub operation and also served as Vice President-Airport Customer Service, West where he was responsible for 55 domestic stations.

Greg has a passion for people and development and has served in the Delta Diversity Council Mentoring program and was named Delta’s RISE mentor of the year in 2008-2009. He serves on the Board of Trustees for Children’s Miracle Network Hospitals and the Advisory Board for the University of Utah’s Eccles School of Business.

Chief People Officer

Archana Arcot

Archana brings more than 20 years of proven expertise in managing Global HR functions and leading large-scale, worldwide People Transition, Integration and Talent Transformation programs. She has extensive career experience in building and integrating HR and People Function in North and South America, Eastern Europe, and Asia. While excelling through various phases of development ranging from start-ups to high growth trajectory operations, she has successfully led, directed, and mentored some of the most elite global HR teams in operation.

Archana has a Doctoral Degree and an MBA in Human Resources. She also earned certifications in Global Professional Human Resources (GPHR) and Change Management from PROSCI. As an accomplished leader in her field, she was nominated to coveted leadership programs where she completed the Stanford Leadership Certification (USA) and INSEAD (France) Management Development Program.

SVP Safety

Brian Bartal

Brian is an experienced aviation safety professional with 20+ years of global safety and operational experience. Brian earned a Bachelor of Business Administration degree from Western Michigan University in 2002 and started his career as a ramp agent in AZO. Prior to joining Unifi in October 2019, Brian has held senior domestic and international leadership positions with companies, including American Eagle Airlines, Menzies Aviation, and Amazon. In 2008, Brian served as an appointee of the US Secretary of Transportation on a Department of Transportation Task Force to find solutions to airplanes delayed on the tarmac. This project resulted in new guidelines for airlines that significantly improved passenger care during tarmac delays.

Throughout his career, he has lived in 16 cities, spanning three countries, including the United Kingdom and Luxembourg. He says that each place he has lived has allowed him the opportunity to progress in his career and take on new challenges. During his time at Unifi, he has implemented programs and processes to continually evolve the safety culture including implementing human-centric safety technology.

Chief Financial Officer

Henk Teunis

Henk began his career at Ernst & Young working with emerging and growth companies. After a decade at EY serving companies across multiple continents, he transitioned into the PE and VC industry spending more than 10 years transforming portfolio companies to the growth objectives of their new owners. At Unifi, Henk leverages his approach of work that entails structure, creativity, and action, focused on the delivery of financial performance and value creation of the Company.

Chief Customer Officer

Don Ridgway

Don Ridgway is Chief Customer Officer for Unifi. In this role, Don oversees sales and customer service across multiple verticals within the organization, including security, facilities, and aviation services. With over 40 years in the aviation and security industries, Don leverages his strong ties to help solve customer problems, build long-term competitive advantages, retain loyal customers, and create strategies to help increase profit.

Chief Commercial Officer

Ying McPherson

Ying McPherson is Chief Commercial Officer, and responsible for the commercial strategy and the development of the organization. In addition, Ying also leads demand and resource planning, enterprise data analytics and customer solutions and marketing departments.

At Unifi, she was most recently chief strategy officer responsible for corporate development and overall strategy of the company. Prior to joining Unifi, Ying held several leadership positions at WestRock, including, corporate development, finance, supply chain optimization and commercial analytics.

Ying began her career with PriceWaterhouseCoopers and spent the next seven years in investment banking, joining SunTrust Robinson Humphrey (now Truist), and then Citizens M&A Advisory.

Ying earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting and finance from Goizueta Business School at Emory University.

General Counsel

Bryan Stillwagon

Bryan joined Unifi in 2020, bringing with him over a decade of experience in labor and employment litigation and counseling. He assists in running the day-to-day operations of Unifi’s expanding legal department including commercial and employment litigation, labor relations, immigration, agency charges and investigations, and contracts. He also advises human resources, operations, finance, IT, marketing, and communications on a variety of legal matters.

He has extensive experience providing practical legal advice to companies navigating employer-employee relationships, including the many complexities that arose throughout the COVID-19 pandemic. He was named Super Lawyers’ Rising Star from 2015-2019, Legal Elite from 2013-2016, and Best Lawyers in America for Labor & Employment Litigation for 2020-2021. Bryan received his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Georgia School of Law where he served on the Editorial Board of the Georgia Law Review.

Chief Technology Officer

Sandeep Angra

Sandeep has 25 years’ experience leading very large and complex IT transformation programs and leading teams across the globe. At Unifi, Sandeep is leading the digital transformation journey. Prior to joining Unifi, Sandeep had leadership roles with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) and KPMG where he led numerous digital transformations, information management, AI, and analytics solutions for many large Fortune 100 companies. He led extensive customer journey programs for major airlines that increased customer engagement and experience, reduced operational expenses, and increased revenue.

He also has experience developing an in-depth training curriculum for multinational firms to educate their workforce on best practices in multiple company verticals. Sandeep has a Master of Science in Computer Applications and has completed Executive Leadership Training with the Yale School of Management.

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