Florida executives making music

Lori Capullo | 11/29/2011

Opera on the Fly

Lisa Murray, 37
CEO / Quintessentially Aviation
Miami

As CEO of Quintessentially Aviation, which specializes in private jet charters, aircraft sales and management, Lisa Murray ensures that operations run smoothly at all 62 of the company's offices worldwide. She loves the job, but growing up in Ireland, her dream was to become an opera singer. "I wanted to take it the full route, but my mum wouldn't let me," she says. "I think she was afraid that if I rejected traditional studies in favor of music, I'd be penniless down the road."

Lisa Murray [Photo: Dave G. Kelly]

Still, Murray joined all the musical societies she could while in college, performed in musicals like "Oliver Twist" and even trained at the Dublin Conservatory of Music.

Wedding notes: She sang opera at her own wedding in Capri, Italy, two years ago.

Starstruck: During their honeymoon, she and her husband, Sean, stopped by their hotel bar one day during the Venice Film Festival. George Clooney, who was in the bar, went up to the piano and started singing "Memories." "I told my husband, 'This is the only opportunity I'll ever get to sing with George Clooney.' So I stepped up and joined him."

On the iPod: "I love everything, but I'm really embracing country music since I got to the U.S., like Carrie Underwood and even Lady Antebellum. I'm not much into reggae, though."