Alex Burns - Chief Executive Officer

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So what, Alex Burns, does a Formula One team’s chief operating officer actually do? Burns smiles. “In essence, I think I run all the bits nobody else wants to touch,” he says. “It’s mostly the non-glamorous stuff, production, procurement, human resources, IT, maintenance... ”

Burns is fascinated by engineering in all its forms – and the seeds were sown, he believes, by his grandfather. “I didn’t know him very well,” he says, “but I was inspired by the stories I heard. He took part in some interesting, secretive stuff during the WWII. He was in the department that designed the bouncing bomb – he worked on the undersea pipeline that took fuel across the English Channel for D-Day.”

Alex’s first contact with motorsport came at Wimbledon Stadium, London, where banger racing was an occasional weekend diversion, but he cut his engineering teeth in aerospace. “I joined Westland Helicopters from school,” he says, “I then joined Meggitt Aerospace, an aerospace engineering company, and stayed there for eight years as quality manager and engineering director.”

One day Burns received a phone call from a headhunter who wondered whether he might be interested in working for what was described as a rapid prototyping business. “It turned out to be Williams,” he says. “I came for an interview and didn’t get the job, but I was hugely impressed by what I’d seen and it really stoked my interest in F1.”

He returned to Meggitt and was promoted to managing director of MEC, but in 2002 the Williams job became available again – and this time it was his. Despite what he implies in the opening paragraph, he’s enjoyed every second. “My engineering and business backgrounds are essential,” he says, “because I have a generalist role and that’s a rare thing in motorsport, where most jobs are incredibly specialised. If nobody is quite sure where to turn, it usually seems to fall to me. I have come to love F1. It’s complex but addictive – an interesting fusion between business and sport. I’d say it’s almost as convoluted as cricket, but that’s a good thing.”

In his own words: “I’m a competitive team player – I like people develop and achieve their potential.”

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