29 March 2024

Boeing CEO Out

All you really need to know about Dave Calhoun's exit is his earlier career and education.

He has a degree in accounting, not anything remotely technical, and the first 27 years of his career was at General electric, working under Jack Welch, and ended up on the GE board.

Jack Welch is significant because in retrospect his success at GE was accounting fraud.

In any case, Dave Calhoun has fallen on his sword for only ……… Checks notes ……… about $50 million.

What a humanitarian.  (I mean this in the same way that you would call someone a vegetarian)

Boeing abruptly said on Monday that it was overhauling its leadership amid its most significant safety crisis in years, announcing sweeping changes that included the departure of its chief executive, Dave Calhoun, at the end of the year.

………

In addition to Mr. Calhoun’s departure, Boeing announced that Stan Deal, the head of the division that makes planes for airlines and other commercial customers, would retire immediately. He will be replaced by Stephanie Pope, Boeing’s chief operating officer, the company said in a statement.

Stephanie Pope, BS in Accounting, Missouri State University, MBA, Lindenwood University.

I'm pretty sure that she is a part of the problem.

Boeing also said that its chairman, Larry Kellner, would not stand for re-election. This weekend, the board elected Steve Mollenkopf, an electrical engineer by training and the former chief executive of Qualcomm, as its new chairman. In that role, he will lead the process of choosing Boeing’s next chief executive.
Qualcomm?  Jeebus.  About the only company out there with less savory business practices than Qualcomm is Comcast Cable, who are so awful that they had to rebrand as Xfinity.
………

A recent F.A.A. audit of Boeing’s Max production found dozens of lapses. The agency gave Boeing 90 days, or until about late May, to address its issues. The Justice Department has also reached out to passengers of the Alaska Airlines flight, [the one where the fuselage plug came out in flight] informing them that they may be a “possible victim of a crime,” according to a copy of one such notification. 
Yeah, I think that the continued presence of MBA types is far worse for Boeing than a potential criminal investigation.

If course, if said criminal investigation results in senior executives and board members being frog-marched out of their offices, that would be a win for everyone, except, of course for the aforementioned executives.

2 comments :

Quasit said...

I hate to say it, but I see no solution short of something far more drastic than a few arrests. The system as it is, is terminal. It needs to be ended.

Matthew Saroff said...

In order to stop this behavior, both in general, and at Boeing in particular, senior executives need to know that they are at personal jeopardy for their bullsh%$.
See my post Bankers Liability and corporate Risk Taking, where a study showed that changes in marital asset law in the 1800s led to more reckless behavior.

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