High-level departure as Virgin Australia CEO shakes up executive team

Virgin Australia group executive Rob Sharp to depart this Friday as part of a management overhaul.

Virgin Australia CEO Paul Scurrah. Picture: Supplied

Virgin Australia group executive Rob Sharp will leave the airline, after a top-tier shake-up by new CEO Paul Scurrah.

In just his seventh week in the role, Mr Scurrah has restructured his executive team, eliminating Mr Sharp’s position and creating the positions of chief commercial officer and chief operations officer.

While a global recruitment hunt is conducted, Tigerair CEO Merren McArthur will act as CCO and current head of flight operations Paul Aggs will act as COO.

The changes come after a two-day strategy meeting on the Gold Coast hosted by Mr Scurrah with his senior leadership team, to prepare a “road map” for the way forward.

Mr Scurrah previously worked with Ms McArthur on the board of Queensland Rail and is understood to hold her in very high regard.

The lawyer has been with the airline since 2008, when she was appointed general counsel and company secretary of Virgin Blue.

Since then Ms McArthur has held various roles, including the head of cargo and charter services, and leading the alliances and revenue management team. She will continue as Tigerair CEO while acting as CCO.

Mr Aggs has also enjoyed a long career with Virgin, joining in 2004 as the manager of regulatory affairs and overseeing the safety systems division and more recently flight operations.

Former Tigerair CEO and Virgin Australia group executive Rob Sharp.

Both appointments were understood to be well received internally at Virgin Australia with employees reportedly pleased to see Mr Scurrah moving quickly on important items.

It followed last week’s announcement of changes to Virgin Australia’s 737 MAX order with Boeing, including the deferral of the first new aircraft delivery until 2021.

After the global grounding of the 737 MAX 8 as a result of two fatal crashes in five months, Mr Scurrah had made the order his first point of business.

The result was considered a major win for the new CEO, with the deferral of deliveries conserving capital and providing more time to rebuild public confidence in the Boeing aircraft.

Mr Scurrah was not available to discuss the executive changes yesterday but told The Australian last week, there was a “positivity in the DNA of people at Virgin Australia that set them apart from the competition”.

“There’s a real desire here by all the people I’ve met for us to succeed and be a powerful player, so that’s very, very good to know,” Mr Scurrah said.

“I’ve engaged heavily with all of the staff through various mechanisms and as a result of that, we’ve got some really good ideas that make a lot of sense.”

Mr Sharp’s last day will be Friday after seven years with Virgin Australia.

It is understood he was given the option of staying on in another role but chose to leave to pursue other opportunities.

Virgin Australia’s share price closed up 2.7 per cent yesterday, at 18.5 cents a share.