Leadership

Ira Birns serves as Chief Executive Officer of World Kinect Corporation and is a member of its Board of Directors.

Prior to becoming CEO, Mr. Birns served as President and previously as Chief Financial Officer, where he was instrumental in strengthening the company’s financial foundation, including its balance sheet profile, while driving cost discipline and efficiency throughout the business. During this period, he also supported the evolution of World Kinect into a diversified provider of energy and related services across the aviation, marine, and land transportation industries, including sustainable aviation fuel (SAF), renewable diesel and other lower carbon solutions.

As CEO, Mr. Birns is focused on driving operational performance, disciplined growth, and long-term value creation, while addressing customers’ increasingly complex energy and sustainability needs worldwide.

Mr. Birns also serves on the board of directors of STEM, Inc., a publicly traded energy software company, where he chairs the Audit Committee. In addition, he serves on the board of the New World Symphony in Miami, a renowned orchestral academy that trains and supports exceptional musicians at the start of their professional careers.

He is a past Chairman of the Association for Financial Professionals and is a Certified Public Accountant.

John Rau is President at World Kinect Corporation, where he is responsible for the leadership of all three of the company’s fuel and energy business segments.

Prior to joining World Kinect Corporation, Rau served as Managing Director at American Airlines, where his responsibilities included jet fuel procurement and management, transportation, and management of the supplier diversity program. He also served as a manager at United Airlines, where he was responsible for the purchasing and hedging of jet fuel and managing United’s jet fuel trading subsidiary.

Rau holds a bachelor’s degree in Business Administration from the University of Kansas.

Fernando Casadevall is the Chief Human Resources Officer at World Kinect Corporation. As CHRO, Fernando is responsible for talent management, talent acquisition, leadership development, colleague experience, compensation and total well-being of the global organization.

Casadevall has served in the CHRO role since January 2019 and is responsible for all human resources (HR) responsibilities including compensation, benefits, recruitment, talent, HR services, and corporate security.

Prior to World Kinect Corporation, he served as CHRO for Qatar Airways (QA), one of the largest airlines in the world with operations in 75+ countries and more than 50,000 employees. He was responsible for HR for QA’s aviation divisions including commercial, cargo, private aviation, HIA airport, duty free retail, catering, and aviation services.

Before QA, Casadevall was the retail group HR director for Al-Futtaim. Based in Dubai, Al-Futtaim operates in more than 40 countries with a global workforce of 40,000+ employees.

Prior to Al-Futtaim he had various roles at Citibank, initially building the HR function across the retail banking and payments groups, then moving into various senior HR roles including regional HR head for Citigroup’s consumer and alternative investment businesses across EMEA. Before joining Citi, he held HR positions with the investment banking firm Spear, Leeds & Kellogg, and with Sony Entertainment.

An active member of the community, he has also previously served on the board of the Baltimore Children’s Museum and the Academy of Finance & Technology.

Fernando holds a Master of Arts in Human Resources Development from Fordham University and a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of Arizona.

Jeff Weissman is the General Counsel and Secretary of World Kinect Corporation.

Weissman is responsible for legal oversight of all of the Company’s commercial and physical operations worldwide, including transactional, commercial, strategic, litigation, risk management, environmental, safety, technology, regulatory, compliance, ¬¬and governance matters.

Prior to World Kinect Corporation, Weissman served as General Counsel of Global Fleet Management Solutions at Ryder System, Inc., responsible for legal oversight, strategy and support for Ryder’s $5 billion vehicle leasing, rental, and maintenance business. Prior to that role, he served as an associate at Holland & Knight.

Weissman holds dual bachelor’s degrees from the University of Pennsyvlania – a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science and a Bachelor of Science in Economics from the Wharton School – and a Juris Doctor from the University of Miami.

Jose-Miguel Tejada is Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of World Kinect Corporation. 

Tejada is responsible for the executive leadership of the company’s financial organization including external reporting, accounting, financial planning and analysis, strategic business unit finance, internal audit, treasury, tax, credit underwriting and collections, non-fuel procurement, and risk management. 

Prior to joining World Kinect Corporation, he served as the Head of Finance, Americas for Noble Group Limited where he oversaw the accounting, product control, and financial planning and analysis functions. Before Noble Group, he worked for nine years at Constellation Energy, Inc. in various controller and financial planning and analysis roles. He has more than 20 years of energy commodity experience within finance. 

Tejada holds a bachelor’s degree in Management from Boston College and a master’s degree in Business Administration from Cornell University.