Rob Sharp to exit Virgin Australia as CEO shakes up executive team
Virgin Australia has confirmed the departure of high-level exec Rob Sharp as part of some big changes to the group’s senior leadership team.
After a review of the company’s structure, new CEO Paul Scurrah announced internally a raft of changes to its executive team.
Among them is a newly created chief commercial officer and chief operations officer role within the Virgin Australia Airlines (VAA) business.
With this, Rob Sharp (pictured above) has made the decision to leave the company on Friday to pursue other opportunities. Sharp has been with Virgin for seven years, first as CEO of Tigerair and then as group executive of VAA.
Merren McArthur will act in the CCO role and Stuart Aggs will act in the COO role while a global recruitment process is conducted.
McArthur is currently the CEO of Tigerair, and Aggs is currently Virgin Austrlaia’s director of group flight operations.
Travel Weekly understands both interim appointments have been well-received internally, and that staff are pleased to see Scurrah moving quickly on important items.
Having been in the role now for six weeks, this isn’t the only major decision Scurrah has made.
Last month, Virgin Australia announced it would defer the delivery of its first round of Boeing MAX aircraft from 2019 to 2021 and convert 15 of its 737 MAX 8 aircraft to 737 MAX 10s.
Email the Travel Weekly team at traveldesk@travelweekly.com.au
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I dont think there has ever been a more disappointed group of shareholders than those who invested in Virgin Australia. While Borghetti took home millions each year the share price slumped to almost nothing. Hopefully the new moves afoot will stat to reverse that trend. Fresh faces should include the board members who have so silently survived through one bad result after another.