Boeing on Monday announced the appointment of Stephanie Pope as chief operating officer. With Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun, 66, likely to retire in a year or two, she’s now in line to become Boeing’s first woman CEO.
Pope, 51, who currently heads the aftermarket services division of the company, will take over as COO in January, overseeing the company’s three main business units. In this newly created position, the heads of the commercial jet and military divisions will report to her, as will Boeing’s chief engineer.
In a financial filing Monday, Boeing said Pope will receive a base annual salary of $1.2 million with an annual incentive pay target of another $2 million, plus a long-term incentive target bonus of an additional $10 million, dependent on meeting preset goals over a three-year period.
A financial filing earlier in the year shows Pope owns almost 35,000 shares in Boeing, worth at today’s price almost $8.7 million.
A financial background
Though many have expected the next CEO to be an executive with an engineering background, Pope has a bachelor’s degree in accounting and an MBA.
In 1994, Pope joined McDonnell Douglas, where her father worked for more than 30 years. She became a Boeing employee with the 1997 merger of the two aerospace companies.
Her 29-year career at McDonnell Douglas and then Boeing has been focused on the company financial performance.
For two years she was chief financial officer of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, and before that was CFO at Boeing Global Services, the aftermarket division she now leads. Before that, she was vice president of finance and controller for Boeing’s military and space division.
She was promoted to head Boeing Global Services and oversee all its operations in April 2022.
Announcing Pope’s elevation to the No. 2 position, Calhoun said she’ll bring “tremendous operational, financial and customer experience to this role, as well as a proven record of performance across our commercial, defense and services business units.”
“Next year will be a significant transitional year in our performance as we continue to restore our operational and financial strength,” Calhoun said. “Stephanie will help drive the stability and predictability necessary.”
Pope’s business unit, Boeing Global Services, has been the company’s only profitable division in recent years. Persistent delays in deliveries of new jets have forced airlines to continue flying older models that require Boeing’s aftermarket engineering and maintenance services to keep flying or to upgrade the planes.
While the commercial jet and defense and space divisions each lost billions of dollars so far this year, Global Services made a profit of $2.5 billion on revenue of more than $14 billion in the first nine months, a profit margin of more than 17%.
In the first three months of 2022, just before Pope took over as CEO of Global Services, the division had a 14.6% profit margin on revenue of $4.3 billion. In the most recent quarter, the profit margin was 16.3% on revenue of $4.8 billion.
While it’s possible Boeing could still look outside the company for its next CEO, giving Pope oversight of all operations shows she’s seen as the top candidate.
Vertical Research Partners financial analyst Rob Stallard wrote in a note to investors that, “Having generated all the company’s profits in recent years as head of the Services division, she is now in pole position to succeed Dave Calhoun.”
