Pedro Heilbron Chief Executive Officer Copa Holdings and Copa Airlines

Wharton Speaker >> Biography

Pedro Heilbron is CEO of Copa Holdings and Copa Airlines, which offers service to 66 destinations in 29 countries in North, Central and South America and the Caribbean from its Hub of the Americas at Tocumen International Airport in Panama City, Panama.

Heilbron joined Copa Airlines in 1988. Under his leadership, Copa established the Hub the Americas, the most successful and efficient hub in Latin America and developed a partnership and strategic alliance with Continental Airlines (now United) in1998. Copa is one of the leading airlines in Latin America and has received several international prestigious awards, including the most recent for “Best Airline in the Central America and Caribbean region” at the 2013 Skytrax World Airline Awards.

Heilbron is currently a member of the advisory board of the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and chairman of the Panama Smithsonian Foundation. He is a graduate of the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester, Mass., with a bachelor’s degree in economics, and earned an M.B.A. from George Washington University in Washington, D.C.