Aireen Omar will take over as CEO of AirAsia Malaysia as founding CEO Tony Fernandes is moving into a group role to be based in Jakarta.
Ms Omar was formerly AirAsia’s regional head of corporate finance and treasury, and will commence in the new CEO’s role from July 1.
Mr Fernandes and co-founder of AirAsia Kamarudin Meranun will remain as non-executive directors in AirAsia Malaysia but will move to Jakarta to take a more strategic leadership of the AirAsia Group from June 30.
“In short, we need to pivot to a wider, regional lens from the first decade’s focus, which was largely domestic,” said Mr Fernandes. “The enormous potential in an underserved market of 3 billion people spread across Asean, Northeast Asia and South Asia offers huge opportunities – and AirAsia, we are convinced, is ideally positioned to reap huge dividends by serving this market.”
AirAsia now operates affiliates in Indonesia, Malaysia, Thailand, and the Philippines and in July will commence operations at AirAsia Japan. Its long haul affiliate AirAsia X is also based in Kuala Lumpur.
