Boeing CEO Dave Calhoun has already announced plans to step down at the end of the year. As a part of that plan, he had intended to stick around for a little bit after his tenure as a member of the company’s board of directors. But proxy advisor Glass Lewis doesn’t think he should stick around at all.
The research service, which instructs institutional shareholders on how they should vote with their stock, said in a report provided to Quartz that it was advising clients against voting for Calhoun’s reelection to the board as a way to “strongly signal dissatisfaction” with the plane manufacturer’s recent woes.
Boeing has been reeling in the wake of a January door plug blowout on an Alaska Airlines-operated 737 Max 9 plane. The resultant scrutiny on the company’s safety and quality standards, be it from regulators or the United States Justice Department, has severely crimped the number of planes it has been able to deliver to customers who have been increasingly vocal about their disappointment. Earlier this week Boeing raised $10 billion in debt markets, but that comes just after it announced it had burned nearly $4 billion in cash trying to fix its issues.
“These key leadership changes may be viewed as an important step in the right direction towards prioritizing and improving a positive safety culture and setting a new tone at the top of the organization,” Glass Lewis said in its report on issues before Boeing shareholders. “Nevertheless, we believe it’s reasonable to assume that the board will understand the implication of shareholders voting against the Company’s outgoing CEO and key directors with oversight of the safety culture and risks; that is, that shareholders will be sending a clear indication of discontent regarding the Company’s recent oversight and handling of safety issues and safety culture.”
Boeing’s annual meeting is May 17.