JOHANNESBURG - South African Airways (SAA) on Thursday announced a number of key appointments, including a new chief financial officer (CFO), to fill the critical skills gap at the troubled airline as it forges ahead with implementing its turnaround strategy.
Bob Head has been appointed interim chief financial officer, effective from Wednesday 11 April 2018. SAA said that Head has extensive management experience in different senior management roles both locally and internationally.
Head is a specialist in turning businesses around and resolving business problems, and is also a former chief executive of a number of companies, and finance and group human resources director.
This comes after SAA last month suspended CFO Phumeza Nhantsi and former chief executive Musa Zwane following unspecified allegations made against them in a forensic probe of the state-owned airline.
Following these suspensions, SAA appointed Nona Sonjani as acting CFO and Wellington Nyuswa to replace Zwane as acting chief technical officer.
SAA chief executive, Vuyani Jarana, said that the airline was aggressively implementing its turnaround plan aimed at returning the company to financial sustainability, with leadership driving the implementation of the strategy.
"The urgency to bring skills into SAA to stabilize leadership cannot be over-emphasised. We have always maintained that we will adopt a three-pronged strategy to bring skills into SAA," Jarana said.
"Filling the critical skills gap is top priority, especially in the financial, business and commercial specialist areas of the airline."