United Kingdom-based BAE Systems last Friday named Ian King to be its next Chief Executive beginning Sept. 1 following the planned retirement of Mike Turner.
King, who is currently BAE’s chief operating officer (COO) for its U.K. and Rest of World businesses, was originally with the former Marconi Corp., which was acquired by BAE in 1999. King has been COO of the U.K. and Rest of World Operations, which has its largest operations in Saudi Arabia and Australia, since January 2007. Prior to that, he led BAE’s operations in Saudi Arabia beginning in 2001 as Group Managing Director for Customer Solutions and Support.
After joining Marconi in 1976, King spent 25 years in various accounting, finance and planning and strategy positions before heading BAE’s Saudi business operations.
“Ian is a highly experienced business leader with a proven track record in our key home markets,” Dick Olver, chairman, BAE Systems plc, said in a statement. “His performance focus and depth of knowledge of the global defence industry will benefit the continued progression of the successful strategy that has been pursued by the Company during the course of Mike Turner’s leadership.”
King is one of two COOs at BAE. The other is Walt Havenstein, who also serves as CEO of BAE Systems, Inc., which is based in the United States and oversees several of BAE’s business groups, which have operations in the U.K., Sweden, South Africa and elsewhere.
Separately, BAE said it has closed its nearly $700 million acquisition of Australia-based Tenix Defence, which is part of Tenix Group. The deal, which was announced in January, more than doubles the company’s presence in Australia and makes it the largest in-country supplier to the Australian Defence Force (Defense Daily, Jan. 18). BAE now has over 5,500 employees and $1.1 billion in sales in Australia.