Team Talk - Meet Richard Camman, Chief Commercial Officer

Richard Camman believes the future always looks bright when you put your energy into things that you want to achieve. This thinking is precisely what has brought him here to becoming Chief Commercial Officer at BagsID.

Richard’s aviation and professional journey started with being selected to work as an officer in the Air Force right after school. Through the Air Force he obtained his bachelor's degree in IT. Followed by a bachelor's degree in Marketing – quickly followed by an MBA. After 3 years, he decided to leave the Air Force, as working for a hierarchical organisation was not his dream.

Richard describes himself as, ‘Someone who is, a very positive open-minded person who sees the value innovation and does not like routine. Who likes to disrupt and do things differently in a very collaborative manner.”

This mindset brought him to his first job outside of the military at a small IT company working on what he calls ‘the basics’. Within this company, he really got to understand all aspects of the IT-business. Working as a programmer, designer, project leader, and in direct contact with customers.

Working in a creative process and analysing customer requirements was one of his favourite professional moments, and he recounts that he has a bit of that in his new role at BagsID, thinking of the passenger journey and experience that BagsID improves.

But he completed other roles prior to coming full-circle and joining the BagsID team. Richard worked for an IT consulting company, mainly with financial and governmental body corporations. This, along with his defence background, got him into his next job at Accenture. It was here that he started working in aviation again and was responsible for the border and Identity Management services. Including the biometric self-service passport control services that we see deployed in airports today!

In 2013, Richard decided it was a great time to start his own business, where he wanted to connect several concepts within IT, data science, and aviation. He worked on a multitude of projects around the globe implementing ideas for seamless journeys across technology and aviation operations.

All his hard work led to him, in 2022, coming to accept his role as Chief Commercial Officer at BagsID. Richard says, “BagsID feels like a logical step based on where I’ve came from. Joining BagsID brings all these experiences together.”

He elaborates that working at BagsID makes him feel empowered and motivated to, ‘basically try and improve the baggage part of the passenger journey with technology.”

Richard’s motivation goes beyond helping passengers and players in the aviation industry though. He tells us more about what gets him out of bed in the morning. At first, he answered like CEO Dave Bakker, a crying baby might be the first thing that gets him up. But he goes further to say, ‘Knowing that you are a part of an ecosystem and a team and that you can contribute to next steps of success and solving challenges in the world.”

Richard explains more about how he likes creating solutions to challenges with a team. “I am not a soloist, I am a real team player, but I am not a follower,” Richard says, “I always like to have the steering wheel in my hands and collectively with the team create valuable and impactful solutions.”

Throughout working on many teams, Richard explains how he has learnt to take all criticisms and opinions as a gift. He says, “I use it even with my daughters. I tell them, if someone takes the effort to analyse your behaviour and takes the effort to give you this feedback, that’s a gift. You should listen to it. Absorb it and try to learn from it.”

We definitely are happy to have you on our team, Richard! We are sure your insights will help improve our mission, and hopefully in the future we can all take a trip to your favourite travel destination – The Alps! Stay up to date on future Team Talk interviews and other BagsID news by following us on LinkedIn or visiting www.BagsID.com.