New Airbus chief executive Tom Enders has reshuffled his senior team, slimming the executive committee from nine to six and marking a further shift by Airbus towards promoting talented high-flyers rather than balancing nationalities in key positions.
Frenchman Fabrice Bregier remains chief operating officer and Enders' number two, with responsibility for the Power8 restructuring programme, engineering, operations, procurement and the A350 programme. Patrick Gavin, Gerald Weber and new appointee from BMW Klaus Richter are executive vice-presidents of engineering, operations and procurement, respectively, while Tom Williams is EVP programmes and John Leahy remains chief operating officer customers. EADS chief financial officer Hans Peter Ring doubles up with the same role at Airbus, with Thierry Baril moving from Eurocopter to head human resources.
Christian Scherer is promoted to a new position of EVP strategy and future programmes, reporting to Enders but not on the executive committee.
For the first time, there is no Spaniard in the top management tier at Airbus.
Source: Flight International
