Boeing Appoints New CEO Ortberg Amidst Challenges and Developments

TapTechNews August 1 news, on July 31, Boeing announced that the company's board of directors elected Robert K. Ortberg as the new president and chief executive officer (CEO), and the appointment will take effect from August 8, 2024. Ortberg will also serve as a director of Boeing.

He will succeed David Calhoun, who announced earlier this year that he will retire from the company. Calhoun has served as president and CEO since January 2020 and as a director of Boeing since 2009.

Boeing Chairman Steven Mollenkopf said: Over the past few months, the board has conducted a comprehensive and extensive search to select the next chief executive officer of Boeing, and Ortberg has the right skills and experience needed to lead Boeing in this new stage. Ortberg is an experienced leader, highly respected in the aerospace industry, and has a reputation for building strong teams and operating complex engineering and manufacturing companies. We look forward to working with him to lead Boeing through this critical period in its long history.

Ortberg said: I am extremely honored and humbled to join this iconic company. Boeing has an outstanding and rich history as a leader and pioneer in our industry. I am committed to carrying on this tradition with the company's more than 170,000 dedicated employees, while focusing on safety and quality. There is still much work to be done, and I look forward to getting started.

TapTechNews found out that Ortberg, 64 years old, has more than 35 years of aerospace leadership experience. He started as an engineer at Texas Instruments in 1983 and then joined Rockwell Collins in 1987 as a project manager and held increasingly important leadership positions in the company, eventually becoming president and CEO in 2013. After five years at the helm of Rockwell Collins, he led the company's integration with United Technologies and RTX until his retirement from RTX in 2021. He has held many important leadership positions in the industry, including as a director of RTX. In addition, he also serves as a director of AptivPLC, a global technology company that is a leader in vehicle system architectures. He has served as the chairman of the board of the Aerospace Industries Association (AIA).

Ortberg holds a bachelor's degree in mechanical engineering from the University of Iowa.

Since the beginning of this year, Boeing has had continuous aircraft accidents, which has led it into a serious crisis. According to a previous TapTechNews report, on July 9, a nearly 30-year-old Boeing 757 of United Airlines had a tire fall off during takeoff, which was the second takeoff tire fall-off situation the company encountered in half a year. Boeing was also exposed to reaching a plea agreement with the US Department of Justice and had defrauded the Federal Aviation Administration in two air crashes.

Earlier this month, Boeing announced that it has resumed delivering its best-selling 737 Max model to Chinese airlines, which is a great piece of good news for the beleaguered Boeing.