Ryanair’s CEO has some advice for Boeing, and it flies in the face of a lot of the analysis blaming the company’s woes on its shift to a cost-cutting, stock dividend-oriented business. “The best CEOs and owners are the accountants, the people who do the boring, repetitive, day-to-day delivery, and that’s what you need,” Michael O’Leary, a former KPMG accountant, told Bloomberg on Wednesday. “They already design great aircraft—you’ve got to make them, but you’ve got to make them on-time and within budget, and that needs accountants.”
To those who think the company should return to its engineering roots, he said engineers get bogged down in detail and lack the clarity of vision of the money folks. He even offered an analogy to illustrate his point. “It’s like, never put a pilot in charge of an airline,” he said. “They want to buy new shiny toys.” O’Leary, who has led Ryanair for 30 years, said he’s seeing signs of promise as the company goes through a leadership transition from outgoing CEO Dave Calhoun, an accountant, to heir apparent and current COO Stephanie Pope (accountant and MBA). “She’s focused now on getting the head down in Seattle, getting the aircraft delivered,” he said. “We’re seeing optimistic signs.”
