Airbus CEO Tom Enders has formally taken over as chief of parent company EADS during the aerospace giant’s annual shareholders meeting.
Enders, a 53 year old German who has headed Airbus since 2007, succeeds Frenchman Louis Gallois. Airbus COO Fabrice Bregier has been appointed to replace Enders as Airbus chief, while Günter Butschek has been named as Airbus’s new COO.
The reshuffle, which had been flagged in January, preserves the Franco-German balance of power atop the company, based around an agreement to alternate the nationality of the EADS CEO every five years.
Formed in 2000 as a conglomeration of French, German and Spanish aerospace companies, EADS comprises Airbus, Eurocopter, Astrium and Cassidian.
