Southwell says main priority will be to raise aerospace giant’s profile with MoD
Robin Southwell, who led the successful AirTanker bid for the UK’s strategic refuelling aircraft contract, is to spearhead EADS’s efforts to secure a bigger stake in Europe’s biggest defence market.
Southwell becomes chief executive of EADS UK, taking over from UK president Sir Jeremy Blackham, who was appointed in 2003 and will retire after a short handover period.
Southwell was chief executive of AirTanker, a consortium of EADS, Cobham, Rolls-Royce, Thales and VT Group, which in February was named preferred bidder for the Ministry of Defence’s Future Strategic Tanker Aircraft (FSTA) programme, beating its Boeing-led rival.
He told Flight International that his main priority in his first year will be to raise EADS’s profile with the defence ministry. “You have to be obsessive about what the MoD wants. I will consider it a success if the UK has started to understand the awesome resources EADS can deliver to Europe’s biggest aerospace and defence market,” he says. “Jeremy established a successful beachhead and we now need to maximise what we do here. EADS is one of Europe’s biggest aerospace and defence secrets.”
EADS employs 16,000 people in the UK directly in its defence and space businesses, or indirectly through its joint ventures Airbus and MBDA. Its operations include Astrium, Paradigm, Racal Instruments, McAlpine Helicopters and Infoterra.
Southwell will report to EADS’s chief operating officer for marketing, international and strategy Jean-Paul Gut. EADS’s co-chief executives Tom Enders and Noel Forgeard say they were impressed by Southwell’s “track record” at AirTanker.
Phill Blundell takes over as chief executive of AirTanker. He joined in May from BAE Systems, where he was group managing director C4ISR. He says the consortium is making “good progress” towards formal FSTA contract award from the MoD. FSTA is a 27-year, privately funded contract to provide aerial refuelling and air transport services to the Royal Air Force. A fleet of around 15 Airbus A330-200 aircraft will replace the RAF’s 19 BAC VC10s and nine Lockheed L-1011 TriStars.
MURDO MORRISON/LONDON
Source: Flight International
