United Airlines announced that effective May 20, 2020, Brett J Hart, Executive Vice President and Chief Administrative Officer, has been appointed President of United Airlines Holdings – a continuation of the company’s leadership succession plan announced in early December with current CEO Oscar Munoz transitioning to Executive Chair and current President Scott Kirby becoming CEO following the Annual Meeting of Shareholders on May 20, 2020.
As President of United, Hart will continue to lead the company’s public advocacy strategy including the Government Affairs, Corporate Communications, Legal and Community Engagement teams. He will also continue to oversee business-critical functions like the Corporate Real Estate team and manage United’s industry leading environmental sustainability efforts. His responsibilities will expand to include managing the Human Resources and Labor Relations teams.
Since joining United in 2010, Hart has taken on a variety of significant strategic responsibilities for the company at critical moments – most notably in October 2015 when he served as interim CEO for six months while Munoz recovered from a heart transplant. Hart’s promotion reflects United’s commitment to leadership continuity and underscores the value of leveraging Hart’s regulatory and strategic expertise, which complement Kirby’s strong commercial acumen and industry experience.
Before joining United, Hart was Executive Vice President, General Counsel and Corporate Secretary at Sara Lee Corporation, where he directed global legal operations for the corporation.
Prior to Sara Lee, Hart was a Partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal in Chicago. Before that, he served as Special Assistant to the General Counsel at the US Department of Treasury in Washington, DC.
Hart serves on the Board of Directors at publicly traded American biopharmaceutical company AbbVie. He is also active in several philanthropic organisations, including serving on the boards of the Obama Foundation Inclusion Council, the Chicago Council on Global Affairs, University of Chicago, and Northwestern Medicine, and is Chair of the Metropolitan Pier and Exposition Authority Board.
