One of the most convoluted leadership structures in the corporate world could be - as we go to press - about to be made simpler. For years, we have urged EADS to ditch its dual chairman and dual chief executive structure that is a legacy of its Franco-German merger in 2000. Yet, when it had the chance, on the retirement two years ago of its original French and German bosses, it opted to replace them with compatriots Noel Forgeard and Tom Enders. It was a messy solution that achieved nothing.
Under Rainer Hertrich and Philippe Camus, the sharing of the crown appeared to work, with units left largely to their own devices. There were key achievements. As well as Airbus's success, the space business was turned around, Eurocopter flourished, and a successful North American business was established. It was under their successors that things started to go wrong, with the A380's wiring problems and indecision over a rival to Boeing's 787 sparking a crisis at Toulouse, which led to Forgeard's resignation and calls for more control of its errant division by the EADS board.
Yet the mire continued. France and Germany could not agree on plant closures at Airbus, and the outsider brought in to impose the restructuring quit after 100 days. Although replacement Louis Gallois, who wears the hats of Airbus chief executive and EADS co-chief executive, has begun to get the airframer back on track over nine months, the structure remains unwieldy.
As we write, it seems certain French president Nicolas Sarkozy and German chancellor Angela Merkel will put an end to this nonsense at their meeting in Toulouse on 16 July and agree a compromise single chief executive. Our bet - although events could prove us wrong - is that this will be Enders, reporting to a single chairman, Arnaud Lagardère. That would leave 63-year-old Gallois to concentrate on Airbus before handing over to his deputy, Fabrice Brègier, in a year or two.
For all it has achieved, EADS - which celebrates its seventh birthday next month - has been inward-looking its stakeholders and management focused more at times on maintaining the balance of national workshare and fretting about what the "other lot" in Munich or Paris are doing, rather than on increasingly global customers and competitors. For some on either side of the Rhine, it may be a bitter pill to swallow, but having a single chief executive reporting to a board under a single chairman is the only way a business the size and complexity of EADS should be run.
Source: Flight International
