British Airways has welcomed four new leaders to its management team as the airline accelerates its recovery from the Covid-19 pandemic.
Calum Laming becomes director of business recovery, leading its mission to rebuild its global network, resources and operations following the pandemic and ensuring the business has the resilience and agility needed in a dramatically changed aviation landscape for the years ahead.
He is currently chief customer officer at Vueling – the Barcelona-based IAG airline – and has previously held a variety of customer, brand, product and marketing roles at Virgin Atlantic, Air New Zealand and Etihad Airways.
Michelle Lydon has been appointed as chief people officer. She will shortly join British Airways from QinetiQ – global experts in defence, aerospace and security – where she was the group human resources director.
In her role at British Airways, Lydon will oversee the airline’s strategy for people and people transformation, learning and development, reward, strategic resourcing, recruitment, employee and industrial relations.
During the pandemic, Colm Lacy and Tom Stevens stepped up on an interim basis to the roles of chief commercial officer and director of brand and customer experience respectively.
Lacy started working for British Airways in 1997 as a finance analyst, since then holding a number of finance and commercial positions.
Stevens joined British Airways on the graduate scheme in 2011, initially working in the procurement team before moving to customer and operational roles.
Both have been on the management committee since 2021 and will continue to lead the airline’s digital-first, customer-centric strategy to ensure the airline delivers for its customers as it moves out of the pandemic.
Announcing the appointments, British Airways chief executive, Sean Doyle, said: “I’m incredibly pleased to welcome Calum and Michelle to British Airways and confirm Colm and Tom in their roles to help us deliver our new vision for the business.
“As we recover from the global pandemic, there’s never been a more important time to have a determined, ambitious and supportive leadership team that will put our people and our customers at the heart of everything we do.”
