Airbus Chief Executive Christian Streiff took a page from his own book at last week’s Farnborough International air show when he said the planemaker was learning to be modest after delays in building its A380 and A350 aircraft.
“Humility is a more important quality than courage,” says an executive in his novel, “Kriegspiel,” about a French company doing business in reunified Germany. Streiff, a Frenchman, published the book, whose title translates as “War Game,” six years ago.
At Airbus, Streiff, 51, is battling Chicago-based Boeing Co., which is ahead in this year’s race for orders in the $60 billion-a-year jetliner market.
Streiff took charge on July 2 after delays in Airbus’ 555-seat A380 superjumbo led to a management shake-up. Now he needs to build a new version of the A350 midsize plane and eliminate production bottlenecks to prevent clients from terminating orders.
Streiff, who spent 26 years at Cie. de Saint-Gobain SA, the world’s largest supplier of building materials, said he will seek approval from Airbus’ shareholders to build the new aircraft within 100 days.
“We are learning to be humble, to learn from our bad habits,” Streiff said last week at Farnborough, his first public appearance since taking the job. He said he’d devoted half of his 16-hour working day to the A380 since being named CEO.
“I’m convinced today that Airbus will get out of this crisis better and stronger than before,” he said.
Streiff won the Airbus job after lobbying by DaimlerChrysler AG, according to three people with knowledge of how he was chosen. DaimlerChrysler is the largest shareholder of Airbus’ parent, European Aeronautic Defense and Space Co.
Streiff got to know Juergen Hubbert, a former chief of DaimlerChrysler’s Mercedes luxury car division, during supervisory board meetings at ThyssenKrupp, Germany’s largest steelmaker, where Streiff was a director.
Airbus, with factories in France, Germany, the United Kingdom and Spain, is counting on Streiff’s ability to straddle borders and pass between cultures to improve communication internally and smooth relations with clients.
Born in Sarrebourg, near France’s border with Germany, Streiff speaks fluent German. He worked in Germany for 10 years. He also speaks English and Italian.
“I personally have an asset, which is that I’m completely European,” said Streiff, who lives with his wife and three children in the Parisian suburb of Neuilly-sur-Seine. “That means there is no risk I could be accused of nationalism by one country or another.”
Streiff has to prove that even without experience in aerospace he can tackle Airbus’ difficulties, said Alan Beaney at Principal Asset Management in Sevenoaks, England.
“This man is untested in his new environment, and he has a complex job to do,” Beaney said. “As a consequence, the jury is still out on how competent he is, no matter how intelligent or charming he may be.”
A pacifist as a student, Streiff learned humility after graduating from Ecole des Mines, one of Paris’ best engineering schools, near the top of his class in 1977. He then failed an oral exam to enter a fraternity for engineering graduates, said Pierre Laffitte, who ran Mines at the time and was on the examining board.
Laffitte said he helped Streiff bounce back by recommending him to people at Saint-Gobain. Streiff rose through the ranks, pushing through job cuts and factory closures. He eliminated about 5,000 jobs, or 15 percent of the workforce, in his division, boosting operating profit by 60 percent.
“He deemed that there were things to do and he did them with energy, and some would say a touch of brutality, but always with a smile,” said Christian Durieu, a representative for a labor union at Saint-Gobain.
Jean-Louis Beffa, now Saint-Gobain’s CEO, chose Streiff as his likely successor over three other internal candidates. Streiff became chief operating officer in April 2004, but a year later he was asked to leave.
Press reports at the time said he had tried to take the reins more quickly than Beffa wanted. Saint-Gobain wouldn’t comment on the decision.
“He did a good job of restructuring and cost cutting,” said Mike Betts, an analyst at JPMorgan Chase & Co. who follows Saint-Gobain. “It wasn’t clear exactly what had gone wrong.”
Streiff did some consulting after leaving Saint-Gobain, but it was evident that he wouldn’t be content if he didn’t find another leadership opportunity, said Olivier Barberot, a France Telecom SA executive and a friend of Streiff’s since their university days.
