Boeing appoints new CEO following turbulent few years

Robert K. Ortberg will take over as the company’s chief executive by the end of next week, the company said in a statement Thursday. Ortberg has an engineering background in addition to decades of experience in aerospace leadership, including as a chairman of the Aerospace Industries Association Board of Governors, according to Boeing’s news release.

Ortberg will replace current Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, who in March said he would resign by the end of 2024. Calhoun began leading the company in 2020. Boeing extensively searched for a new CEO for several months before deciding to hire Ortberg as the best candidate, it said.

Did the company say anything about its recent struggles? Under Ortberg, Boeing plans to work on increasing the safety of its planes, Chairman of the Board of Directors Steve Mollenkopf told employees Wednesday. In recent months, Boeing planes have suffered from various problems, including a door that blew off in mid-flight and wheels that fell off an aircraft in flight.

The company also agreed to plead guilty to a fraud charge earlier this month related to two plane crashes in 2018 and 2019 that killed a total of nearly 350 people. The agreement calls for the company to pay a total fine of nearly $500 million. But a lawyer for some of the victims of the plane crash objected to the agreement, saying it was not in the public interest. The deal has yet to be approved by a federal judge.

Dig deeper: Read my report in The Sift about how the company has been working with the FAA to implement a new safety plan during its manufacturing processes.