This is one profile in a set on the operators that AE Industrial Partners hires as its operating partners and senior advisors, the people a private equity firm pays to guide the companies it owns. The pattern behind who gets the seat is laid out in Built to Be Bought. Paul Fulchino earned his by running a large aerospace-services business and selling it to Boeing.
The company he ran, and sold
Fulchino was Chairman, President, and CEO of Aviall from 2000 to 2010. Under him the company grew at roughly 30 percent a year and became the world's largest independent provider of new aviation aftermarket parts, per his AE Industrial bio. In 2006 Boeing agreed to acquire Aviall for 48 dollars per share, about 1.7 billion dollars, plus the assumption of roughly 448 million dollars of net debt; the deal was announced on May 1, 2006 and completed on September 20, 2006, per Boeing's announcement. At the time, Aviall had about 1,000 employees, was headquartered in Dallas, and distributed roughly 700,000 catalog items for some 220 manufacturers across North America, Europe, and Asia, per NBC News. Fulchino stayed on to run it as a Boeing business.
The résumé underneath the Aviall run
Before Aviall, Fulchino was President and Chief Operating Officer of B/E Aerospace, the aircraft-cabin-interiors company, where he oversaw a tripling of growth and profitability, per MarketScreener. Earlier he was President and Vice Chairman of Mercer Management Consulting, and he began his career as an engineer at Raytheon working on the manufacture, testing, and inspection of missile systems, per his AE Industrial bio. From 2010 to 2014 he served as a senior advisor to the chief executives of Boeing's Commercial Airplanes and Defense businesses.
The door he walked through
Fulchino is the large-operator profile who also ran his business all the way to a strategic sale. He was a hired professional chief executive rather than a founder, which places him alongside the operators rather than the company builders, but the outcome rhymes with the founders' path: he grew a large business and delivered a clean exit at a premium. He was an independent director of Spirit AeroSystems from 2006, a seat that ended when Boeing took Spirit private on December 8, 2025, per the Spirit board page and CNBC. He now serves as a Senior Advisor across AE Industrial's portfolio, with board seats at portfolio companies including Blue Raven Solutions.
Related reading
- Built to Be Bought: the full playbook of building a company to be bought and keeping the equity after.
- Bill Boisture, who ran Gulfstream, NetJets, and Hawker Beechcraft: the other advisor who ran and sold big aviation businesses.
- Peter Cannito, who tripled Polaris Alpha and now runs Redwire: the operator's run-scale-sell pattern.
- Marc Duvall and the five-billion-dollar division: another large-aerospace operator.
Fact-check notes and sources
- Chairman, President, and CEO of Aviall from 2000 to 2010, growing it roughly 30 percent a year into the largest independent new-parts distributor; earlier roles at B/E Aerospace, Mercer Management Consulting, and Raytheon; senior advisor to Boeing's CEOs from 2010 to 2014; current Senior Advisor at AE Industrial: his AE Industrial bio and MarketScreener biography.
- Boeing's 2006 acquisition of Aviall for 48 dollars per share, about 1.7 billion dollars, plus roughly 448 million dollars of assumed net debt, announced May 1 and completed September 20, 2006: Boeing's announcement. Aviall's scale at the time: NBC News.
- Independent director of Spirit AeroSystems since 2006, a seat ended by Boeing's December 8, 2025 take-private of Spirit; his West Point, Boston College, and Columbia education: the Spirit board page and CNBC. Fulchino attended the United States Military Academy but received his degree from Boston College, and no military command role applies.
This post is informational and journalistic, describing publicly reported people, companies, and transactions. It is not investment, tax, legal, or M&A advice. All parties are discussed from public records and their own published statements as nominative fair use, with no affiliation implied and nothing endorsed by them.
