Jay Wynn

Jay Wynn is the co-founder and Managing Director of Fairmont Consulting Group LLC. Over the course of his career, Jay has led or supported more than one-hundred strategy engagements and M&A transactions in the aerospace, defense, and government services sectors. As the co-founder of Fairmont, Jay has worked to build a firm that focuses on outstanding client service, providing new, unique, data-driven analysis in support of clients’ most complex and challenging business questions.

Jay began his career as an advisor in the aerospace and defense sector more than twenty years ago, working as a consultant with ANSER Corporation serving clients at the Pentagon. Prior to founding Fairmont, Jay served as a managing director with CSP Associates, a leading aerospace and defense advisory firm. During his time at CSP Jay led or played a key supporting role in more than one hundred transaction and strategic advisory engagements for more than thirty clients in the United States and Europe.

Prior to CSP, Jay worked with Bain & Company in their Private Equity Group, providing due diligence advisory services to clients across a range of industries. He previously worked with Gartner Group as a senior consultant, providing strategy and market analysis to clients in enterprise IT and telecommunications.

Jay received an MBA from MIT’s Sloan School of Management. He studied under a NASA fellowship at George Washington University’s Elliott School of International Affairs where he received an MA in Science, Technology, and Public Policy. Jay was a President’s Scholar at Georgia Tech and received a BS with Honors in Aerospace Engineering.

Ben Harper

Ben Harper joined with Jay Wynn to co-found Fairmont Consulting Group LLC in 2012. Ben leads Fairmont’s commercial aerospace practice, and plays a key role in Fairmont’s strategic and transaction advisory engagements across all of the firm’s served markets. His thought leadership and expertise in commercial aerospace have played a critical role in helping clients understand the challenges and opportunities they face, whether through transaction due diligence or through long-range strategic planning.

Prior to founding Fairmont, Ben was a Director at CSP Associates, a leading aerospace and defense advisory firm, where he joined as a Senior Associate in 2008. Earlier in his career, he worked at Deloitte Consulting, providing management consulting across several industries, with an emphasis in telecom and technology strategy.

Ben was a Fellow in MIT’s Leaders for Global Operations program, the world’s preeminent program for operations and supply chain management. He received an MBA and an MS in Materials Science and Engineering through this program. His fellowship research focused on operations improvement and organizational strategy while at Spirit Aerosystems. Ben has also received a BS in Chemical Engineering and BA in Economics from Rice University.

Max Asterlin

Max Asterlin joined Fairmont as an Associate in 2013 and joined the Partnership of the firm in 2023. Max has led hundreds of engagements and many internal areas for Fairmont including proprietary market model development, diligence and strategic process maturation, and has been a thought leader in several of Fairmont’s core markets. While active across the aerospace, space, defense, and government service markets, Max’s expertise is particularly notable within aero engines, advanced manufacturing & product technologies, and more broadly manufactured products & services.

Prior to Fairmont Max held multiple engineering and program related positions at United Technologies – Pratt & Whitney. Max worked across multiple space, military, and commercial product lines including the powerplants on the Space Shuttle Main Engine, C-17, Boeing 757, F-35, culminating as a module lead for Pratt & Whitney’s next generation commercial engine, the Geared Turbo Fan, powering the Bombardier CSeries (Airbus 220). Max touched a wide range of engineering and manufacturing disciplines including design, structural assessment, failure analysis, in-field FAA safety investigations, customer service issues, repair development, and program/project engineering predominately within the Turbine Module. Notably, he worked extensively with critical part groups like turbine airfoils and life limited rotating parts in both operational and design aspects. During this time Max received his certification as an ASQ Six Sigma Black Belt and as a Pratt & Whitney Master Black Belt in addition to obtaining multiple utility patents relating to the internal cooling architecture and manufacturing processes for turbine airfoils.

Max holds a Master of Science in Aerospace Engineering from the Georgia Institute of Technology, an MBA with Honors from Purdue University, and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, also from Purdue University. He has received Professional Engineering-In-Training certification.

Annalisa Weigel, Ph.D.

Annalisa Weigel, Ph.D., is currently a Senior Director with Fairmont Consulting Group. She supports growth strategy and market due diligence engagements for various sponsors and strategic clients across Fairmont’s practice areas and leads the firm’s space practice. Annalisa formerly served as the CEO of Panoptes Systems, a company focused on creating innovative environment perception products and related services for commercial small unmanned aerial systems, during which she continued her involvement with Fairmont as a Director.

Annalisa initially came to Fairmont from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where for eight years she was a faculty member researching and teaching in aerospace and defense innovation, continuous process improvement, and systems design. At MIT, she did pioneering work in understanding innovation dynamics in the aerospace and defense sector. She is the author of over sixty journal and conference publications.

Prior to MIT, Annalisa worked at Lehman Brothers in the firm’s Macro Equity Strategy research group. She also supported the firm’s Institutional Investor-ranked aerospace and defense equity research team. Previously, she was a researcher with MIT’s Lean Aerospace Initiative. Before that, she worked as a consultant with Adroit Systems Inc. serving clients at the Pentagon and in the national security community.

Annalisa received her PhD in Technology, Management, and Policy from MIT, as well as Bachelor’s and Master’s degrees in Aerospace Engineering. Studying under a NASA fellowship, she received an MA in Science, Technology, and Public Policy from the George Washington University’s Elliot School of International Affairs.  Annalisa is a Fellow of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA), a past Trustee of AIAA from 2014-2024, and a past Trustee of the AIAA Foundation from 2018-2024.  Annalisa is also a Member of the MIT Corporation.

Elizabeth Whelan

Elizabeth Whelan joined Fairmont in 2023 as a Director. Prior to this, Elizabeth served as the Special Assistant to the Under Secretary of the Air Force from April 2022 until June 2023. She was brought in to serve as a senior advisor in support of the Management Initiatives, which focused on making the Department of the Air Force more effective and efficient. She is the recipient of the Air Force Meritorious Civilian Service Award.

Prior to her time in government, Elizabeth spent eight years at BAE Systems’ Electronic Systems serving in increasing leadership positions within the Business Development organization. Her most recent role focused on maturing the sector-wide business development organization with a number of projects, including leading a redesign of the Sector’s Customer Relationship Management platform. She also supported the successful acquisition and integration of Collins Aerospace’s military GPS business. In addition, Elizabeth spent four years providing competitive intelligence and other related support to the Sector’s key strategic captures. 

Before moving into the defense industry, Elizabeth was an aerospace and defense consultant at Renaissance Strategic Advisors. She supported projects with market forecasting and assessments and future trend analysis, as well as due diligence efforts.

Elizabeth received a Bachelor of Arts in International Studies from Stonehill College, a Master of Arts in Security Studies from Georgetown University and a Master of Business Administration from the University of Massachusetts at Amherst. She currently holds a security clearance.