New Boeing CEO takes helm, says there's 'a lot of work to do'

Shares of Boeing (BA) are on the move after new CEO Kelly Ortberg officially took the helm of the aerospace giant. In a letter to employees, Ortberg wrote that Boeing has "a lot of work to do" in terms of transparency and trust. He also says he is going to be based in Seattle instead of the corporate offices in Virginia.

Morning Brief Anchors Brad Smith and Seana Smith discuss the state of Boeing and the challenges Ortberg is facing.

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This post was written by Nicholas Jacobino

Video Transcript

Let's take a look at chairs of Boeing here.

We're watching that stock.

It's up just about a half of a percent Ceo Kelly or beg taking the helm.

His first day is today, he wrote an email to employees and in that memo or beg telling staff that the company has quote a lot of work to do to restore trust.

And I think that puts it lightly, a couple of things that stuck out to me within this memo was the fact that he went on to say I will be transparent with you every step of the way, sharing news on progress as well as where we must do things better.

Also saying we clearly have a lot of work to do in restoring that trust.

And he's confident that working together we will return the company to the industry leader that we all expect.

He's expected to tour the main factory floor near Seattle today on his first day.

He's also planning, I believe, to relocate to the city to Seattle, which we know is at the heart of Boeing's activities here in order to try and kind of recoup some of the uh lost trust when you talk about the manufacturing, what exactly takes place in Seattle.

So he's reaffirming his commitment to that city.

He's laying out his plan for the company going forward.

And I think at this point, investors have been encouraged, were encouraged.

You saw that from the share price reaction once Kelly Ortberg was named as the new CEO and now obviously, he's facing a tremendous amount of pressure to right the ship and do it quickly.

Yeah, I mean, when you're on I five, you can't Miss Boeing's manufacturing operations.

They used to do tours over there in Seattle too.

Uh, I hope they started to bring that back.

It was kind of a COVID thing, uh, that forced them to kind of shut that down.

But this, of course, the first day where it's really going to be a larger question of how much can the corporate culture under a new leader change and a new leader that's going to have to steer in a Spirit arrow systems as well as part of being able to kind of bring even more control to the operations in the manufacturing procedures here.