Oscar becomes Exec Chairman, Kirby becomes CEO on 20 May 2020
Dec 5, 2019, 6:05 am
#1
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Oscar becomes Exec Chairman, Kirby becomes CEO on 20 May 2020
Oscar will be stepping down next May and Kirby will be stepping up to run United
Last edited by J.Edward; Dec 5, 2019 at 6:13 am
Dec 5, 2019, 6:19 am
#8
Join Date: Jun 2019
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De nada!
I will say though that in the Star Wars video they actually caption who he is which makes it even lamer.
This was going to happen years ago but then they dragged Doak off the plane so it got delayed. UA equity is performing well enough that the board got over it.
I will say though that in the Star Wars video they actually caption who he is which makes it even lamer.
This was going to happen years ago but then they dragged Doak off the plane so it got delayed. UA equity is performing well enough that the board got over it.
Dec 5, 2019, 6:23 am
#9
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This is going to make Jeff S look like he was a benevolent CEO.
Given changes to MP program, I think Kirby will be gone in a year or two. This will either all blow up or he will be the evil genius. I predict the former....but who knows...
Given changes to MP program, I think Kirby will be gone in a year or two. This will either all blow up or he will be the evil genius. I predict the former....but who knows...
Dec 5, 2019, 6:26 am
#11
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Scott Kirby has been the de facto CEO for quite some time now; certainly, he's been at the strategic helm of the ship since he walked in the door, so this should come as a surprise to no one. Oscar's charge was to "clean up" the Smisek mess, get a flight attendant deal done and finish the merger. I think he succeeded beyond expectation in that regard. Second, while we bellyache about cheap service cuts and degradation of the passenger experience, United's financial performance over the past 3 years is primarily attributable to Scott Kirby's strategic initiatives (which were quite unpopular on Wall Street when first conceived), and so I think it's to Oscar's credit that he recognized his own limitations vis-a-vis airline industry experience and let Kirby run with such a controversial plan.
This is a fairly orderly transition, with plenty of notice, so there's no reason to believe it's health-related. 2020 would have been 5 years since Oscar came in, so it's a natural time to make a leadership change. It's notable that this will be the first internal CEO change at United in 20+ years, and only its second in about 50 years. It's pretty much uncharted territory at this company to bring in a new executive absent some sort of seismic upheaval, like scandal (Smisek>Munoz), merger (Tilton>Smisek), bankruptcy (Creighton>Tilton), 9/11 (Goodwin>Creightton), an ESOP (Wolf>Greenwald) or a major business failure (Allegis/Ferris>Wolf).
I think the point is, very little will change with Kirby as CEO.
This is a fairly orderly transition, with plenty of notice, so there's no reason to believe it's health-related. 2020 would have been 5 years since Oscar came in, so it's a natural time to make a leadership change. It's notable that this will be the first internal CEO change at United in 20+ years, and only its second in about 50 years. It's pretty much uncharted territory at this company to bring in a new executive absent some sort of seismic upheaval, like scandal (Smisek>Munoz), merger (Tilton>Smisek), bankruptcy (Creighton>Tilton), 9/11 (Goodwin>Creightton), an ESOP (Wolf>Greenwald) or a major business failure (Allegis/Ferris>Wolf).
I think the point is, very little will change with Kirby as CEO.
Dec 5, 2019, 6:30 am
#12
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Scott Kirby has been the de facto CEO for quite some time now; certainly, he's been at the strategic helm of the ship since he walked in the door, so this should come as a surprise to no one. Oscar's charge was to "clean up" the Smisek mess, get a flight attendant deal done and finish the merger. I think he succeeded beyond expectation in that regard. Second, while we bellyache about cheap service cuts and degradation of the passenger experience, United's financial performance over the past 3 years is primarily attributable to Scott Kirby's strategic initiatives (which were quite unpopular on Wall Street when first conceived), and so I think it's to Oscar's credit that he recognized his own limitations vis-a-vis airline industry experience and let Kirby run with such a controversial plan.
Dec 5, 2019, 6:34 am
#15
Join Date: Jul 2012
Posts: 1,115
It's important to note that he was scheduled to be promoted to the role of chairman of the board of UCH at the 2018 annual stockholders' meeting, but the Dao incident prevented delayed that from happening.
As already observed in C-suites all over the country in recent years, once a PR storm is over and everyone forgot what happened, the scheduled rewards, promotions and bonuses are awarded to the involved people anyway.
Next up: Dennis Muilenburg.
As already observed in C-suites all over the country in recent years, once a PR storm is over and everyone forgot what happened, the scheduled rewards, promotions and bonuses are awarded to the involved people anyway.
Next up: Dennis Muilenburg.
Last edited by mozilla; Dec 5, 2019 at 6:49 am