Rolls-Royce has announced that BP's Helen McCabe will be joining its board chief financial officer after August 31 and has named Rob Watson as president, civil aerospace.
McCabe, who is senior vice president, finance for the customer & products division of BP, will replace Panos Kakoullis, bringing with her "more than 25 years of experience in senior finance and performance management roles within complex multi-national engineering organisations".
“I would also like to extend the thanks of the whole Board to Panos for his hard work. It has been my pleasure to work alongside him over the last 18 months as he has helped us deliver on the short-term commitments made to shareholders during the difficult times of the pandemic and return the business to positive free cash flow," said chair Anita Frew.
“I look forward to welcoming Helen to my leadership team. Her track record of promoting rigorous financial discipline and experience of delivering performance management to achieve dramatic improvements will be invaluable as we move, at pace, to transform Rolls-Royce," said Tufan Erginbilgic, chief executive.
Meanwhile, Rob Watson has been appointed as president, civil aerospace. Watson has been with the company for 13 years, during which he "has demonstrated his ability to develop new technologies and products within a tight budgetary framework" and for a time was the regional director in the Middle East.