Philippine Airlines (PAL) has named Gilbert Santa Maria as its new president and chief operating officer.
He succeeds Jaime Bautista, who retired in June. In between the period, PAL’s chairman and chief executive Lucio Tan was named as interim company president.
The carrier says Santa Maria was a handpicked nominee of Tan, and his appointment was approved at a board meeting on 29 July.
Santa Maria does not have any aviation background and experience, and that his recent executive leadership positions was with outsourcing companies.
Until early 2018, he was the chief operating officer of an outsourcing company Ibex Global. He was also the finance and operations chief at IQ BackOffice.
Source: Cirium Dashboard
