As Volaris Group celebrates its 30th anniversary in 2025, we are publishing a series that examines the individuals, businesses, and milestones that have contributed to the development and growth of our ecosystem of software businesses into what it is today.
Lifelong learning isn’t just a core value that we hold – it’s also a driving force behind the continuous growth of Volaris Group.
Learning has enabled our business leaders to keep their businesses innovative and resilient in a fast-changing business landscape, where technology evolves constantly and new opportunities can emerge around every corner.
We offer learning opportunities to ensure our businesses thrive as we fulfill our promise to invest in them forever. Starting from our first learning program in 2009, we’ve built our programs carefully to respond to the needs of the businesses we invest in through our ownership.
How our learning programs began: Trapeze Academy
By 2009, our company had been acquiring businesses under the name of Trapeze Group. Trapeze had acquired about 20 businesses over 14 years. Owning a number of businesses began to give us broader insights into the issues that vertical market software companies face. We realized many of our businesses were facing similar challenges and could benefit from sharing solutions.
The first Trapeze Academy would be the first of many learning programs we would offer at Volaris.
We saw an opportunity to organize a learning and networking opportunity for our globally distributed workforce. In addition to sharing best practices, we wanted to facilitate open conversations in an environment where our leaders would feel comfortable sharing their knowledge to help their peers.
Held in November 2009, the first Trapeze Academy featured topics including a financial bootcamp, business case briefings and group work, and several best practices workshops. Talent management was the topic of several sessions that covered how leaders could maximize their roles as people managers, improve their performance coaching, and the skill of giving feedback.
Participants of Trapeze Academy had the chance to directly speak with senior leaders. Senior leaders who attended the first Trapeze Academy included Mark Miller, who was the CEO of Trapeze Group at the time, Brian Beattie, who was the CFO at the time, and Mark Leonard, the founder of Volaris parent company, Constellation Software.
The week wasn’t all work with no play. A welcome reception and social dinner encouraged leaders to mingle. During one special evening, Canadian comedian Pete Zedlacher provided a touch of lightness as the official entertainment of the event.
Expansion of Volaris learning programs
Trapeze Academy demonstrated that we could unite businesses under a common set of strategies while encouraging leaders to network and find solutions among their peers. We continued to offer and expand the program.
In later years, Trapeze Academy was renamed to Volaris Academy after Volaris became a separate entity from Trapeze, and Volaris Academy was offered more frequently — up to twice a year. Later, Volaris Academy evolved and became known as Volaris 101. Volaris 101 was offered up to six times a year in-person, with senior leadership traveling to different regions of the world to deliver the program.
Beyond in-person events, we began to offer resources online for leaders to access them from anywhere in the world and learn at their own pace. Online offerings have included:
- Volaris 101 Online, a prerequisite to the Volaris 101 Live program that introduces our best practices before the in-person event
- Leader Resource Center, a central resource to support leaders of our businesses in their work
- Global Best Practices portal, a collection of resources to help leaders and employees improve business performance
- Peer-to-Peer sessions, a leaders-only program that regularly provides small group discussions on topics such as product roadmaps, market research, succession planning, and building commercial awareness
Volaris learning programs in 2025
Our learning programs in 2025 have evolved to reflect the needs of who we are as an organization.
- Volaris 101, our original learning program that originated from Trapeze Academy, is now the best practices program now organized by our portfolios. Being offered at the portfolio level means that leaders can discuss best practices closer to the level where they operate.
- In 2022, we introduced an experimentation framework through workshops that several of our business participated in. These experiments helped our businesses to generate actionable insights about customers, products, and themselves and explore growth areas for their businesses.
- In response to growing interest in AI, we organized our first AI Summit in 2024, with leaders tuning in online from all around the world. The sessions responded to the desire for our businesses to get ahead of fast-moving AI developments. By popular demand, the summit returned in 2025 with more up-to-date developments.
- Also related to AI was an AI Innovation Challenge organized for our 2024 Quadrants conference. The competition challenged our leaders to seize opportunities to improve their businesses using AI. Teams vied to win cash prizes and recognition from peers and judges, but many of them found that participating in the challenge already produced rewards for the business.
- Since we are a highly acquisitive company, we regularly offer summits for our M&A professionals.
- Every year, several of our high-potential leaders are invited to take part in the Volaris Executive Growth Academy (VEGA), a program offered in partnership with the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management.
- In 2019, we held our first version of Quadrants, our largest employee conference that brings together more than 1,100 top leaders for a week of networking, learning, and knowledge-sharing. Quadrants was held again in 2022 and 2024, with overwhelmingly positive reception from participants.
Volaris and learning in the future
As we mark the 30th anniversary of Volaris Group in 2025, learning remains a core value for our company. We plan to continue investing in resources for our employees to advance their knowledge and development, equipping them and their businesses for the next 30 years and beyond.
