- New CEO will have to rebuild trust, reputation
- Company posts another quarterly loss as it burns cash
- Defense and space business adds to Q2 losses
July 31 (Reuters) - Boeing on Wednesday named aerospace industry veteran Kelly Ortberg as its new President and CEO after a months-long search, tasking the former Rockwell Collins executive with the monumental job of turning around the struggling planemaker.
Ortberg, 64, will start on Aug. 8 and face a multitude of issues, including reviving jet production and rebuilding trust with regulators, the industry and the flying public. Shares rose 2.9% before the bell.
Boeing, one of two global planemakers, has been mired in a reputational and safety crisis after a Jan. 5 mid-air panel blowout on an Alaska Airlines-operated MAX 9 jet carrying 171 passengers. It posted a $1.4 billion loss in the second quarter as it continues to burn cash.
He might have a BS in mechanical engineering, but almost all of his experience is managerial. Looks like he was a project manager at Rockwell Collins and stayed in management until becoming CEO, then Raytheon bought them and he oversaw that merger.
Bottom line, he’s still an MBA type (though apparently doesn’t have an MBA himself). I don’t have high hopes for him to turn Boeing back into a quality aerospace company.