Life after Delta

Winners and losers: lots of blogivators like to list losers and winners at the end of the year (for example, ‘Big Loser: Saddam Hussein’) but we sort of question the value of these compilations. We’d like to offer one or two, and here to lead of our list is a guy who probably qualifies as both a winner and a loser: Jim Whitehurst was number two to Jerry Grinstein at Delta, and was one of the two leading candidates to replace Grinstein, who came in with the stated intent of leaving as soon as Delta got out of bankruptcy. At one point Whitehurst, an architect of Delta’s European expansion and a chief rallier of the troops, told the media that he would probably stay at the Atlanta-based Delta even if he didn’t get asked to succeed Grinstein. And the other internal candidate, CFO Ed Bastian, said similar things. Well, neither won the job and Delta chose former Northwest Airlines chief executive Richard Anderson to follow Grinstein. Bastian stayed and was promoted to president as well as chief financial officer, while Whitehurst left. We know Jim wanted the job; he told us in August that he did. But rather than sulk in his tent, Whitehurst went out and found a new job. He will take over a well-known software developer on New Year’s Day.