What’s Behind India’s Next Era of Growth

SCOTT KIRBY

Most people confuse management and leadership. If you can inspire 120,000 people with a vision, you can accomplish a whole lot more than if you’re going through a checklist every day.

RAVI SHANKER 

Since its inaugural flight a century ago, United Airlines has defined commercial air travel, with a history of firsts, spanning everything from the modern airliner and flight attendants to computerized flight planning. Today, United connects more people to more destinations than any carrier on the planet. But it isn’t just about growth; United is focused on improving the travel experience for all passengers. Behind this vision, CEO Scott Kirby has spent his career thinking differently about what it means to run and lead an airline. When the industry was impacted by Covid, United invested for growth and emerged stronger. Even as corporate boards began confronting deglobalization, Kirby leaned into international expansion. And now, as many leaders view AI as a way to cut headcount, Kirby sees technology as a way to improve human interactions, not replace them. As Morgan Stanley’s lead North American airlines analyst, I want to learn more about how Kirby makes decisions in an industry that faces constant uncertainty. So I traveled to United’s headquarters in Chicago, where I sat down with Kirby on the day United turned one hundred and got a close look at Kirby’s approach to leadership and discussed some Sambas.

RAVI

Thank you, Scott, for having me here today on the actual one hundredth anniversary of United. Congratulations.

SCOTT

Yeah, today’s the day: a hundred years.

RAVI

Happy birthday!

SCOTT

Thank you. And how do you like the shoes? Hundred-year anniversary Sambas.

RAVI

That is fantastic. You graduated from the Air Force Academy. Did you originally aspire to fly professionally? And what prompted you to go a different direction?

SCOTT

I went to the Air Force Academy intending to be a pilot and then an astronaut, and while there, you get to fly, and I was out in an F-4—dogfighting, aerial, broke the sound barrier-

RAVI

Wow.

SCOTT

-and at the end of it, the pilot told me to close my eyes and fly straight and level by feel, and I was at a 30-degree left bank and he said, “Use the instruments,” and I did, and I felt like I was going to fall out of the seat to the right, and he laughed at me and said, “You’re never going to be a fighter pilot. You’re going to be a cargo pilot.” And that moment, I decided, “I’m sure you’re right about the first one, but you are dead wrong about the second one.” So I didn’t go to pilot training.

RAVI

To the present day: you may not be a fighter pilot, but you operate in an environment of near-constant volatility. So how do you handle the daily realities of this environment we are in right now?

SCOTT

You’re trying to figure out on the fly what’s going to happen, trying to look over the horizon, trying to read extensively—I’ve done that my whole life, I read three hours a day on average—but I’m genuinely curious, and when you do that, you connect the dots I think that other people can’t connect and don’t see. I think this has happened a lot of times in my career: to try to see things earlier and how to take advantage of stuff when I have a view that is different than the consensus view.

RAVI

How do you carve out the space and time to think long term, with everything going on?

SCOTT

I’m really good at time management, and I don’t waste time: in my personal life, professional life, I’m not on social media—what a time suck—I don’t really watch TV, another time suck. But in business, less than four hours of meetings a day on my calendar is my rule. It gives you time to think, it gives you time to read, it gives me time to just call people and ask questions, but also, I have a great team. And I feel like if I am trying to micromanage, I’ve done something wrong.

RAVI

You’re known as a highly data-driven leader. So as data has become more pervasive, has your approach to leadership changed as well?

SCOTT

I don’t think it’s changed so much because of data—in fact, I probably use data less explicitly the further I go in my career. I could tell you pretty close what it’s been for the last thirty days; I know about the operation; I know what we’ve done; I know what each of the other airlines have done. But I really use that more to paint the palette of thinking about other bigger decisions. And I draw a big distinction between management and leadership.

Management is about compliance; it’s about running the checklist: how many people showed up for work on time. But leadership is different; it’s about inspiration and vision. And compliance is really important; you need people to do that. But leadership is more rare.

The further you move up anywhere in your career, the more your job indexes from management functions to leadership functions.

RAVI

Is that your leadership version? Did you have a mentor? How did you, kind of frame that?

SCOTT

I’ve learned a lot more from watching people make mistakes. And I’ve learned a lot, more of the positive examples, from reading: you know, Winston Churchill’s top of my list of heroes. You know, like, what would Winston Churchill do in a situation like this? Abraham Lincoln is another one. But I also learn from myself too, like mistakes that I’ve made, like you make a mistake like, “To thine own self be true,” what a great line. When you screw something up, like I don’t mind making a mistake; I hate making a mistake twice.

RAVI

What are the feedback systems that you have, to maybe see some of the things that you're not seeing?

SCOTT

You have to spend a lot of time out, talking with people. I have the easiest job of anyone at United because I have only really one responsibility: create a company that our employees are proud of. And so I look for that pride, and I spend a lot of time out in the operation, you know, I—every week I'm out, you know, either virtually or in person, talking to groups of new captains and talking to groups of new pursers at United, and you can tell if people feel proud of the company. People want to be on a winning team, and winning is contagious.

RAVI

Can you give us an example of an instance where the data pointed one way, but your gut or instinct kind of said there was something different?

SCOTT

Covid. You know, when Covid started, the data to me pointed to like, this is a global pandemic, and it was hard for me to understand why no one else knew it. We were just a couple weeks ahead of the globe-

RAVI

-you were the first.

SCOTT

-but, you know, we went off and raised two billion dollars at three percent interest two days before the NBA walked off the court and it would’ve been impossible, and we shrunk more than everyone else quickly. But then during Covid, the data got wrong. All the experts believed that air travel demand would never recover, and all the surveys—if you did surveys—people said they were never going to fly again.

And so, literally every global long-haul airline in the world, except United, permanently retired part of their global long haul wide-bodied fleet and shrunk. And we looked at that, and I said, “I think that’s just the wrong decision.” Instead, we did the biggest aircraft orders in history during Covid.

RAVI

If you were not the CEO, what job would you like to have and why would you be good at it?

SCOTT

The foundation of an airline is the route network. That is our asset. You have to learn the whole airline; you have to learn what makes it tick, what makes it work, what makes it profitable, what doesn’t work, what works operationally. You really have to learn the whole network to be good at route planning.

RAVI

Global expansion is obviously a major focus for United. You fly to 385 destinations globally. What are some of the unique challenges and opportunities?

SCOTT

Flying globally is—it’s what customers want, so that's the starting point. But it also creates unique challenges and opportunities. I mean, you know, we're just exposed to everything that happens anywhere in the world. You know, if there's war in the Middle East, you know, we're not just hit by fuel prices, we fly to those places. When the war in Ukraine started, we, you know, flew over Russia. Anytime something happens in the globe, we're exposed to it, but it's where our customers want.

When you’re an airline as large as United, it actually—to find new destinations, it means that we can’t just use data. We’re flying to places like Nuuk, Greenland, which no US airline has ever flown to. And so, you have to find other sources and other ideas and make bets on what will work. This summer, we’re starting two destinations in Spain and Portugal that are part of pilgrimages: where people fly into Lisbon and they walk two hundred miles to another destination. We’d seen a lot of one-way traffic in but not return traffic in and realized that, and it’s been booked up like crazy, so it’s done really well.

RAVI

What gives United an edge when it comes to recruiting pilots, flight attendants, or anybody else who wants to work for United, and kind of pass that culture through?

SCOTT

We really are at the top of the food chain for aviation and for industries at large. We're growing faster every year in absolute than any airline in history has done, which gives you lots of opportunities. And if you come to United, it feels like you're on the winning team. I just came from speaking to a group of new hires. We had people from all of the major airlines. A lot of them were talking about, “In my area, United is doing this, and you're the leader here.” And so they're all excited to come. People that come to United are usually coming for a career. We still create the kind of careers that used to be common in the United States. But, you know, a pilot, a mechanic, a gate agent, you know, can start here when they're twenty years old. And when they get to the top of the scale, and certainly with a little bit of overtime, they can make six digits; they have great benefits; you know, they can work for a lifetime. They can buy a house; they can send their kids to college. It's an important part of the fabric of America. And being able to create those kinds of careers, it’s—we're proud to do it.

RAVI

Just given the thought and effort you guys put into recruitment, kind of how does that translate into customer experience? Kind of that culture of United coming through?

SCOTT

What we've tried to do is actually hire people for attitude, instead of hiring for technical skills. We can train someone to be a flight attendant. We can train someone to be a gate agent. What we can't train is to be a people person that cares. So we try to hire people that have that attitude that are really our “people people.” I mean, we're in the business of connecting people and uniting the world.

RAVI

The premiumization of air travel is a major theme in the industry, kind of a big change versus the last decade. So how is United kind of building brand loyalty across all segments?

SCOTT

So I pushed back actually a little bit on the premiumization of the industry. It is happening, but I start by saying, “We're investing nose to tail for all customers.” And I think that actually the gap between our Economy and other airlines’ Economies is probably bigger even than the gap between Premium to Premium; there's a gap in both places. But, you know, with things like Starlink throughout the airplane, seatback entertainment throughout the airplane, the app—you know, we have the best technology of any airline in the world, the app. Anyone that uses it knows it. So we're really focused on creating products, technology service that all customers like. We have a lot of Premium demand, and we’re investing more heavily. You know, the latest 797, you know, I think is probably the best airplane flying in the Western world. The CRJ 450, you know, when you're flying to small cities, you know, it's like flying on a private airplane. It's the opposite trend of what most airlines do, and we took 18% of the seats off the airplane.

RAVI

So when it comes to innovation, kind of either on board or on the ground or offline, how do you come up with kind of innovative new ideas in terms of customer offerings?

SCOTT

I try to go by the philosophy that Henry Ford had and Steve Jobs had. Henry Ford said something along the lines of, “If you ask people what they want, they’d tell you, a faster horse.” And Steve Jobs famously eschewed any kind of consumer survey stuff because he wanted to invent something that they didn't know they wanted yet. Some of the things that we put in the app are not the kind of things that people ask questions about. You know, we put a scorecard in for frequent fliers last year: How many flights did you take? How many hours? How many miles did you fly? We’ve started putting the airport map, so you can see when you're on the ground where you have to taxi.

I want us to surprise and wow our customers every year with something new. So then they get on the airplane, they say, “I've never seen an airline do that; I never even thought of this before.” So we're trying to figure out what people will love, even if they haven't asked for it yet.

RAVI

You just added the TSA wait times to the app. I didn't know that was possible.

SCOTT

We've also added technology on the app that if you opt in, we’ll track you, so we can know to wait for you for connecting gates. We want to do things like deliver food to your gate, if you need a connecting flight and you want to be able to order food. But one of the other things is, it'll give real time waits, trying to get really real-time data to customers, and we're the only airline that’s doing it.

RAVI

Moving to the topic of AI. So how does AI improve how United operates? And what does that mean for your passengers?

SCOTT

It's a great tool. It's going to do a lot of things—it does do a lot of things—really well. But I do not think that the primary use case of AI is replacing the work that everyone does. And if that's the primary use case, like, it's for sure a bubble, because we're spending way too much for that. Too many people are getting dependent on AI, and like thing that people are using AI for is summarizing documents. Like, that seems to me to be the number one use case. I actually want to read the book. Because all the cool learnings are, you know, on page 312 in a little paragraph that there's some cool insight, and I think you're going to miss all that.

The cool thing about AI is the things that you can do that were impossible or impractical before. One of my favorite examples is, anytime there's a delay or cancellation, I want the team to pretend I'm on the airplane and I've called the network operating center: “Why is my flight delayed?” Whatever they would tell me, I want to tell customers 100% of the time. We're better at it than any other airline in the world, but we're not even into the game yet. We're still in the pre-game. [It’s] really hard to do without AI. It's also going to help us, I think, in our network operating center, when we’re deciding which flights—when stuff happens, you know, when weather hits and airports close, like it's one of those problems that has multiple tentacles that can last for days: crew and maintenance and all kinds of other implications. And they're all stochastic, like you know, you don't know for sure what's going to happen down the line.

RAVI

Scott, you mentioned that Covid was an instance where the data pointed one direction, but your instinct took another direction. What is that moment today?

SCOTT

Oh, oil prices and the war in Iran. From the time that MEU left Asia for the Middle East, I thought the forward curve was wrong. I thought oil was going to be higher for longer. And so we’ve been preparing for that at United. The experts that I talked to back then all told me: worst case, the Straits of Hormuz are open by the end of March. I think oil prices are going to be higher for longer. We at United are preparing for that. That's our base case planning assumption. I think there may be an opportunity to take advantage of it when our competitors are managing more by hope instead of reality.

RAVI

Scott, so when you eventually do step out of the CEO role, what do you hope people would say that you changed about United and the industry?

SCOTT

I want to have United to have launched a new era in aviation—what it means to be an airline. A lot of it's going to be technology—the technology that takes all of the uncertainty and stress of travel. Make travel fun. And my second one is to leave behind a CEO who's better than me.

RAVI

Well, we won’t be making that change anytime soon. Scott, thank you for joining us. It has been real fun.

SCOTT

Thank you.

RAVI

Appreciate it.

Salem 

The concept of wellness is no longer just about burning fat and building muscle. It’s expanded into something far more holistic, including how we eat, how we sleep and how we manage stress. Corporate attitudes towards well-being have also changed.

Carvalho

Employee well-being is being discussed at boards now because the liability of not having employee well-being is super high. And it’s going to be even more relevant going forward.

Salem 

One leader who saw this shift long before it became mainstream is Wellhub’s CEO and co-founder, Cesar Carvalho.

Carvalho

The next step is corporate well-being becoming a standard that every single company has to offer, that every single employee demands their employer to do.

Salem 

His vision turned the company into a multi-billion-dollar business that is reshaping how organizations and employees think about wellness. As part of Morgan Stanley’s Investment Banking team, I’ve had a front-row seat to Wellhub’s remarkable expansion. I sat down with Cesar recently to talk about the company’s journey and where the future of wellness is headed.

Salem 

Cesar, it's great to have you here.

Carvalho

Thank you for having me. Great to be here as well.

Salem 

For those who are not familiar with Wellhub, tell us a little bit about what you guys do.

Carvalho

Wellhub is a technology company that's making well-being accessible to every single employee. And we're also helping change behaviors for the better at scale. And right now, we work with more than 40,000 corporate clients, and we have over 5 million paid subscribers. Those subscribers are visiting more than 100,000 partners—different gyms, studios and apps—more accessible, more flexible, and have more options than any traditional gym membership.

Salem 

What was it that inspired you to do this?

Carvalho

Growing up in the countryside in a rural area, I've always had well-being close to heart. I was a super active kid with sports and etcetera, and when I started working, they all went away and I completely forgot about that part of my life. I was doing my MBA, and I took a break. And I noticed there was an opportunity here to bring those two worlds together again and help not only myself but every single other employee who was struggling with not keeping up with well-being. And that was when I decided to drop out of my MBA to pursue this amazing mission. And 13 years later, here I am still driving it forward.

Salem 

How has corporate well-being evolved, you know, across all companies and their attitudes towards offering this type of thing to employees?

Carvalho

It started as a cost center, and now it has already moved into an investment strategy and part of the overall strategy for companies. Well-being used to be an app for meditation, an app for nutrition, an app for physical activity, some partnerships with gyms nearby the office, or maybe an in-company gym. And the problem with those legacy solutions is that the employee participation on those are extremely low. The new version of employee well-being is very different. It's about engagement. It's about the products employees would use every single month, many times per week.

Salem 

The ecosystem that Wellhub has, from the companies to the wellness partners to the employees: it's very powerful. And I want you to talk through a little bit the interplay across those three groups.

Carvalho

Starting with the employees: they have access to a membership that never existed in the well-being space. It costs less than a traditional gym membership but gives every single employee access to thousands of locations, many different wellness apps for physical activity, nutrition, sleep, meditation, and therapy. The companies that are clients of Wellhub love the products we bring to them, because we get a lot of those people who were not previously active, were not previously engaging with well-being, to sign up for the first time. They want to invest, to get those people to change behaviors for the better, and they reap the benefits as well. And the last part of the equation here are our wellness partners: the different gyms, studios, and apps we work with that are included in our memberships. Because we're getting a lot of new people into this ecosystem, they're getting incremental revenue, they're increasing their earnings. Our ecosystem is the reason why our model is so robust and why also it's growing super-fast.

Salem 

In December of 2025, Wellhub reached a significant milestone: one billion check-ins, representing a tenfold increase in just three years. That means one billion moments when subscribers visited a gym, took an online fitness class, or paused for a mindfulness break. For Cesar, this growth reflects a broader shift: companies and employees are placing ever greater value on health and fitness.

Salem 

What is the business case to the company itself?

Carvalho

We help people change behaviors and get to a healthier life. And we track ROI in three different fronts. The first one is health care costs. Health care cost is probably the single largest expense after payroll for every single company. That cost is growing at a very fast pace, and prevention is the key to save 70% of those costs. And even though that's obvious, only 4% of all spend goes into prevention. A second part is on employee retention and the acquisition of talent. And it's going to be quite clear, for the employees currently working in the company and for prospective employees, that those companies who are embracing well-being, that they care about them. And those companies are going to have an amazing ability to attract people over time and retain the best talent. The last part is on sick leaves. Employees who are active or constantly exercising our engagement with well-being take fewer days off, and therefore they contribute more, not only to their families, to their lives because they're being productive, not sick, but also to their companies as well.

Salem 

In 2019, Cesar decided to move the company’s headquarters from Sao Paulo to New York. Since then, Wellhub has rapidly expanded into major U.S. markets. But growth doesn’t stop in the Americas.

Talk to me about your strategy for further international expansion.

Carvalho

Most companies start in the U.S., they grow very fast, and then they sort the international piece afterwards, and then they struggle with the different currencies, languages, and the localization strategy for every single small market. I think the benefit of Wellhub is that we sorted that international piece first. We sorted the complexity, and we solved for it. And now our most important challenge, which we're executing successfully, is scaling very fast in the U.S., a huge market where well-being is more prevalent than in other places, and it's at the forefront of innovation in this space.

Salem 

The fact that wellness partners are incentivized to join the platform does make you very insulated from the different things that change in the fitness and wellness industry.

Carvalho

I've been doing this for 13 years. It happens all the time. It's like the movies industry: there's a new blockbuster every year. You know, pickleball was the most recent one in the U.S. There are new ones coming. You know, CrossFit was at the peak at some point in time. Zumba, you know, and it will keep happening. And this is what keeps well-being fresh and why companies are better off picking a platform that's constantly getting better over time, versus trying to build each one of these solutions on their own to each of their employees.

Salem 

After stepping away from a traditional corporate path to build a company that reimagines work-life balance, Cesar is now on a mission to turn every organization into a wellness company: one where employees check in with their well-being every day. And that philosophy starts with him.

Salem 

I’ve gotta know, a day-in-the-life of the CEO of Wellhub, what are you doing start to finish?

Carvalho

It starts with a high-intensity workout, a sauna and a shower, before I jump into calls with my team. I try to have a healthy lunch, some meditation, calls with our clients and partners to get feedback and build a better product. I try to use Headspace so I can meditate and to hear sleep stories so I can go to bed on a high note. Look, I use Wellhub every single day: visiting our partners, trying different activities. And to me, that is what makes me a better CEO. But in addition to using Wellhub every single day, even when I'm traveling—last week I was in Germany, used our international check-ins to visit Holmes Place there. This morning we're here at Life Time. I already did my check in the morning, you know, to exercise before I work, so I try to integrate it in my routine. I try to meet with my team in healthy events. You know, so instead of going to a bar, why don't we do a yoga class together or a meditation session together? Meeting with our partners or vendors: why not to do it in a healthy way so that we build on those habits?

Salem 

Can you talk a little bit about your leadership style? How are you able to inspire your employees?

Carvalho

If I had to pick two words, I would pick “empower” and “trust.” Empower because I deeply believe all the decisions in the company, they need to be made, either by my direct reports or by their direct reports. And I'm very big on pushing decision-making down so that we can be the best at making those decisions, considering the perspective of whoever is running the business closest to action. The second thing about trust is about treating employees like adults, giving them flexibility if they need the chance to, like, prioritize well-being and still deliver the results that are expected of them.

Salem 

If I were to go 20 years into the future and look back, what is the type of legacy that you personally and your company would like to leave?

Carvalho

What we're building here is not only critical for individuals themselves—you know, if you're active, if you're exercising, we're going to live longer and we're going to live better lives as well—but this is also critical for society and for companies. My legacy, I want it to be to have every single company be also perceived as a wellness company. And I want well-being not to be something employees do twice a week but for it to be a daily habit. And if that happens in the world, I think my kids are going to live in a better world 20 years from today, and that will be an amazing legacy every person would be very proud to live.

Salem 

Cesar, thank you so much for being here. It was great catching up and learning more about the company.

Carvalho

Thank you for having me, Emeel.

Salem 

The day is not over, though, until we do a workout.

Carvalho

Let’s go for a workout together.