Flight Standards Director - Jesper Rasmussen

JesperThe EASA Management Board has appointed Jesper Rasmussen as Flight Standards Director of the European Union Aviation Safety Agency (EASA). He will be responsible for the development of regulations and standardisation of EU National Authorities in the domains of Aircraft Maintenance, Production, Operations, Aircrew, Aerodromes and Air Traffic Management. His responsibilities will also cover the approval of organisations outside of the EU in these domains.

Prior to joining EASA in 2017, Jesper Rasmussen was the deputy director general in the Danish multi-sectoral national authority, where he since 2012 has been responsible for aviation safety as well as railway safety. In this function, he has been a member of the EASA Management Board and represented his country on aviation safety affairs at EU and ICAO level.

Before entering into aviation, Jesper Rasmussen occupied for 20 years other posts in the Danish central government administration, both in the Ministry of Transport and Ministry of Industry, where he was responsible for such domains as road traffic and the construction sector.

The broad cross-sectoral experience has provided Jesper Rasmussen with a range of tools covering risk analysis, effectiveness of regulation and oversight methods. He has always worked with the objective of supporting industry development and innovation, which can be a challenge in such highly regulated sectors. In this respect, he prefers a close dialogue between authority and stakeholders as key to decide where to change things first.

During the last couple of years he has actively endeavoured to move the Danish NAA from being compliance-based to being more risk and performance-based in oversight practice – as an effort to give more responsibility and room for innovation to industry.

He holds a Ph.D. in social sciences from University of Roskilde, Denmark.

Jesper is married and has four children. In his spare time he enjoys being with his family, travel and engaging in seasonal sports (tennis, skiing).