After a global search, Air New Zealand (ANZ) has picked an insider to succeed Ralph Norris as chief executive.
Rob Fyfe, who was already part of ANZ’s senior management, became chief executive immediately upon his appointment in mid-October. He succeeds Norris, who left the airline at the end of August to head Australia’s Commonwealth Bank.
Forty-four-year-old Fyfe has been with ANZ only three years, but rose quickly during that time to become group general manager of airlines. In this role, he led a strategic review that helped reshape ANZ after it teetered on bankruptcy. He was part of the inner circle of managers that Norris claimed were well-qualified to replace him. Chairman John Palmer praises ANZ’s leadership development and succession planning and claims Fyfe “won this appointment on merit against a strong international field”.
Fyfe joined ANZ as chief information officer in 2003 after heading failed British pay-television operator ITV Digital. Most of his career was in banking. After eight years in New Zealand’s airforce, where he became a flight commander, Fyfe started civilian life with New Zealand’s PostBank, then the Bank of New Zealand, and finally its parent, National Australia Bank, in Australia and Ireland. He spent much of that time in marketing, distribution and electronic banking. He holds an engineering degree from Canterbury University in Christchurch and is married with two children.
Fyfe regards himself as a manager of change, and sees this as the biggest challenge ANZ faces. The industry is “volatile – a business that requires continual change leadership,” he says. “I believe the company has the resilience, the vision and the people to deal with these challenges.”
DAVID KNIBB/SEATTLE
Source: Flight International
