In urging that Boeing should focus 100 per cent on quality and safety, with financial targets taking a back seat, Aengus Kelly, chief executive of the world’s largest aircraft leasing company AerCap, is offering sage advice to the embattled aerospace manufacturer (Interview, January 19).
In that regard, the board and senior executives of Boeing might also reflect on the perspective of the late Jack Welch, often regarded as the father of the “shareholder value” movement. In a road to Damascus moment, the legendary former chief executive of GE told the FT in an interview in 2009: “On the face of it, shareholder value is the dumbest idea in the world. Shareholder value is a result, not a strategy . . . Your main constituencies are your employees, your customers and your products.”
Regrettably, Boeing is now a textbook example of the downward spiral that can befall a once great company when the pursuit of shareholder value takes primacy over the basic fundamentals that ensure a company’s success.
Professor Louis Brennan
Trinity Business School
Trinity College Dublin, Dublin, Ireland
