Newsmaker: Amadeus' David Jones Ascends To CEO Position

Amadeus commercial head David Jones on Jan. 1, 2009, will take on the role of president and CEO—filling the position held for 18 years by José Antonio Tazón, who is heading into retirement and a non-executive role as chairman of the Amadeus board.

Jones, a travel industry veteran who has held his position as commercial head of Amadeus for 16 years, told BTN that initial plans to follow Tazón out the door have been put on hold. "José Tazón and I were both scheduled to leave around the same time," Jones said, "but having talked about it with the board, it wasn't desirable for us both to leave at the same time. We came to the conclusion that the arrangement announced was the best, that José would move to non-exec chairman and I take over as president and CEO for a while."

Jones added, though, "I'm unlikely to be CEO for as long as José was, which was 18 years. On the other hand, I'm significantly younger than John McCain. From that you can deduce that I'll be here as long as is needed, and that is up to the board and/or myself to decide. There's no definite time limit on this. I'm the CEO, period, with full powers."

In his commercial role, Jones already had overseen "a very big chunk of the organization," but now will take on additional duties, such as development, operations, "the normal staff functions, finance, legal and HR."

Jones said he would not bring a radically different strategy or vision to Amadeus. "Every CEO in the world would say the primary objective is to come out of this horrible economic storm in the best possible shape, and that is obviously highly preoccupying. Do we think we need to fundamentally change our strategy in this situation? Absolutely not. We're quite sure our strategy is the appropriate one for Amadeus, and this is a very unfortunate, and could be a very major, external shock. We don't see anything there that persuades us that our strategy is wrong. It probably increases our belief in the validity of the path we've set ourselves on."

As Jones shifts away from the position he's held since 1992, Philippe Chérèque—an Amadeus executive since the company's founding in 1987—will move from his senior vice president of corporate strategy role to head Amadeus' commercial duties. Meanwhile, Luis Maroto will add the title of deputy CEO to his current role as chief financial officer.