The Qantas Airways Limited (ASX: QAN) share price is pushing higher on Wednesday.
In morning trade, the airline operator's shares are up 3% to $6.20.
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Why is the Qantas share price charging higher?
Investors have been buying Qantas shares today after responding positively to a major management reshuffle.
According to the release, Rob Marcolina will become the airline company's new chief financial officer (CFO) when Vanessa Hudson vacates the position to replace Alan Joyce as CEO.
Marcolina is the current Qantas group executive of strategy, people and technology. He will also take on the responsibility for strategy and transformation while in the CFO role.
The release notes that the new CFO has been with Qantas since 2012 and has a deep understanding of the business, having been closely involved in core decisions on capital allocation, commercial strategy and transformation.
Another key appointment is Markus Svensson as the new CEO of Qantas Domestic. This will follow the retirement of Andrew David in September. Svensson is the current chief customer officer and has been with Qantas for over a decade.
The business appears to be in safe hands. The release highlights that the new Qantas Domestic CEO has broad experience across revenue management, network, sales, alliances, offshore operations, and strategy.
A third appointment is Catriona Larritt, who has been appointed the new chief customer and digital officer. Larritt is currently executive manager of Qantas Freight and was formerly chief commercial officer at Jetstar. The release also notes that responsibility for technology will be added to this portfolio, which reflects the role of digital in improving customer experience.
New roles created
In addition, Qantas has revealed the creation of a couple of roles. One is a dedicated chief people officer. This role will bring together human resources and industrial relations functions, which are currently split. It certainly will be a busy time for whoever is appointed to the role. Qantas expects to create 8,500 new jobs in Australia within the next decade.
Another role that is being created is the chief risk officer position. This will bring together risk management for the company as a whole to provide the highest level of oversight and governance. Current Qantas executive, Andrew Monaghan, will step into the role.
Finally, the company will be looking for a new CEO of QantasLink. That's because the current CEO of QantasLink, John Gissing, will retire from this position in November after almost 25 years with the company.
Why the changes?
Incoming CEO Vanessa Hudson believes the changes bring renewal but also achieve a level of continuity. She said:
We have a deep bench of experience at Qantas, which means we're able to recruit internally for many senior executive roles when they come up, and that makes transition a lot smoother.
The structural changes announced today are about increasing our focus on a few key areas as we move from recovery to growth, especially when it comes to things that matter most to our people and our customers.
