Two more top-level directors could be ousted from Boeing’s board of directors next week as family members of the victims of two fatal crashes of its 737 Max jets join shareholders to push for further high-level reforms at the aerospace giant.
The $146bn Chicago-headquartered company holds its annual meeting on Tuesday as it attempts to recover its financial and reputational poise in the wake of the grounding of its 737 Max planes and the pandemic’s upending of the commercial travel market.
Boeing has made changes to the membership and structure of its board since a second 737 Max crashed in Ethiopia in 2019, including seven directors who have already left or are due to step down next week. The changes, however, have not included two key executives under attack from some family members and shareholders, the chairman, Larry Kellner, and Edmund Giambastiani, who heads the board’s safety panel.
“This is a board of private equity and celebrity politicians and failed GE cost-cutting people that are draining the company’s legacy assets for current gain for themselves and the shareholders,” said Michael Stumo, whose 24-year-old daughter Samya Rose died in the Ethiopian Airlines flight 302 crash.
Speaking to the Guardian, Stumo said Boeing had fired hundreds of engineers, cut corners on quality, and used profits to buy back stock options for executives.
“They’re trying to keep up with the Facebooks and the Googles on the stock price, rather than using their enormous resources and legacy to make fantastic quality and safe airplanes,” Stumo said.
Since the crashes, Boeing has added four new members to its board. Kellner, the former chief executive of the old US airline Continental, said earlier this year that the board would work to identify “diverse candidates with appropriate expertise who bring qualified perspectives”.
Boeing says its slate of 10 directors up for re-election includes two women and two people of color. But recent reports, including one in…