At face value, the December 1 departure of Pier Francesco Guarguaglini as chairman of Finmeccanica should herald a new dawn for the Italian aerospace and defense group. But his successor Giuseppe Orsi, who continues to serve as chief executive too, faces a monumental task to rebuild the company’s business plan in the face of third quarter losses of €324 million ($422 million).
Guarguaglini, who incidentally is under investigation in connection with allegations of false accounting, had flat-out refused to sanction the case Orsi had built for a fundamental restructuring of Finmeccanica. The 74-year-old former chairman, who was appointed by deposed Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi, was at the head of the generation of Finmeccanica management that had felt frustrated by the steadfast refusal of Airbus to let the Italian group join the European airframing consortium.
Charles Alcock is managing editor of the AIN Media Group, having rejoined the company in 2019. He has been an aviation journalist since 1986, and previously worked for AIN from 1990 to 2017, most recently as editor-in-chief. His main focus is on covering new aviation technology and business models, as well as international news.
Having been raised in the London area, Alcock studied at the University of Manchester in the UK and earned an honors degree in Politics and Modern History. He speaks English and French, and some German.
