JOIN USBoeing's communications head to retire next year
Boeing Co's head of corporate communications, Ann Toulouse, elected to step down from her role and would retire next year, the world's largest plane-maker said on Friday.
Toulouse, a 30-year company veteran, is the second high-ranking female communications leader to leave the embattled U.S. plane-maker as it fights to rebuild trust with airline customers and the flying public after two recent crashes of its 737 MAX killed 346 people in the span of five months.
Boeing said it would name her successor in the near future.
"This past year has been all-consuming and profoundly difficult for all of us at Boeing - albeit nowhere close to the experience of the families affected by the MAX accidents," Toulouse said in a prepared statement accompanying a news release.
"As we look ahead, I am confident the hard lessons learned will make Boeing better and that we will deliver on our important commitments," she said. "As we move into that next phase, I can best serve the company by turning over the role to someone with fresh perspective and, therefore, made the difficult decision to retire."
Toulouse, 61, became interim senior vice president of Communications, reporting to Chief Executive Dennis Muilenburg, in September 2018. She took over the permanent communications role in February 2019.
Boeing said last week that Linda Mills, the chief communications official for Boeing's embattled commercial airplanes division, was leaving the company.