- Boeing named Stephanie Pope the new CEO of its commercial airlines division on Monday.
- The promotion is part of a gendered pattern researchers identified years ago: the “glass cliff.”
- When male leaders have led a company into a crisis, they’re often replaced by women.
Stephanie Pope knows Boeing well: a third-generation employee, she joined the company in 1994.
In January, Pope was named Boeing’s chief operating officer, a newly created role in which she reported directly to the CEO and oversaw BCA, Boeing’s defense, space, and security division, and Boeing Global Services.
Now, in a major Boeing leadership shake-up — the current CEO said he’ll step down at year-end, and commercial airlines head Stan Deal left on Monday — Pope is stepping up to lead the embattled airline’s commercial arm.
Her promotion comes amid one of Boeing’s most challenging chapters, as the company confronts major safety issues that sparked a slate of federal investigations and customer complaints.
Pope’s step up also fits into a pattern researchers have dubbed the “glass cliff.” In times of crisis, male-led companies often pick women and people of color to try to right the ship.
“If women are appointed in times of crisis, it’s not that women are unable to lead, but leading in a time of crisis is more difficult and more precarious than leading when everything is great,” said Michelle Ryan, the researcher who helped coin the phrase.
To see the glass cliff in action recently, look at X, formerly known as Twitter. Elon Musk named media veteran Linda Yaccarino to succeed him as CEO last year. Yaccarino came in with a strong résumé but a nearly impossible mandate: stem X’s advertising bloodbath, as companies ran from Musk’s controversial leadership; convince people to start or keep using X; and lead a workforce reduced after mass layoffs.
Other glass cliff examples include Carly Fiorina at HP, Marissa Mayer at Yahoo, and Sue Gove, who took over as the CEO of Bed Bath & Beyond in 2022 amid falling sales. The retailer then filed for bankruptcy and closed its stores.
But Boeing said there’s no better leader for what departing CEO Calhoun called a “watershed moment.”
“She is deeply committed to our company, to our employees and to our shared future; and she is the perfect person to take on the leadership of our commercial airplanes business,” Calhoun said in Monday’s statement.
The company statement did not include any comment from Pope herself. Pope did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Business Insider sent outside regular business hours.
