Boeing Names New Top Salesman

Head of In-Flight Web Unit To Lead Jet-Selling Efforts After Series of Airbus Wins

The Wall Street Journal 12/06/04
author: J. Lynn Lunsford
(Copyright (c) 2004, Dow Jones & Company, Inc.)

After months of losing key sales campaigns against rival Airbus, Boeing Co. Chief Executive Harry Stonecipher replaced his top airplane salesman with a veteran Boeing executive who most recently ran the company's growing in-flight Internet-service venture.

Mr. Stonecipher named Connexion by Boeing President Scott Carson the new vice president of sales, succeeding Toby Bright, who had led Boeing's world-wide sales team since January 2002.

The moves, disclosed late Friday, came after a recent trip Mr. Stonecipher made to Europe and the Middle East. According to people familiar with the situation, Mr. Stonecipher came away from meetings with customers convinced Boeing wasn't doing all it could to beat Airbus.

He ordered Boeing Commercial Airplanes President and Chief Executive Alan Mulally to make immediate changes, beginning with lower-level sales personnel in the regions he had just visited. According to these people, Mr. Stonecipher had been advocating moving Mr. Carson into the sales job for several months.

Until Friday, Mr. Carson had been president of Connexion, an in-flight Internet venture begun in 2000. Mr. Carson, 58 years old, was forced to refocus that business after several major U.S. airlines that had partnered with Boeing for satellite-based e-mail and Internet service pulled out in the weeks after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Before running Connexion, Mr. Carson was chief financial officer of Boeing's commercial-airplanes unit, where he worked closely with Messrs. Stonecipher and Mulally.

Boeing declined to make Mr. Stonecipher or other executives available for interviews. In a statement, Mr. Stonecipher said that Mr. Carson's appointment "will strengthen and improve our global sales effectiveness," which he called one of the company's "highest" priorities. He called Mr. Carson an "exceptional listener who follows through relentlessly on customer concerns."

Mr. Bright's replacement came as a surprise to many within Boeing. Some sales executives questioned privately whether the popular, soft-spoken executive should be held accountable for the defeats in an environment in which Mr. Stonecipher has made it clear Boeing is unwilling to match Airbus on price. "When you tie somebody's hands going into the fight, you shouldn't be surprised when the other guy is the only one left standing," said one executive. Earlier this year, Mr. Stonecipher defended his stance. "We're either going to earn money selling our airplanes or we're not going to do the deal," he said.