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Why It Is Time to Replace United CEO Munoz

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By Douglas A. McIntyre Updated Published
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Why It Is Time to Replace United CEO Munoz

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It is time for the board of United Continental Holdings Inc. (NYSE: UAL) to let CEO Oscar Munoz go. He deserves every bit of compassion any ill person should receive, but his ailing heart has kept the company he runs in management turmoil.

Munoz had a heart attack last October 15. When it was clear to the board he would not return for months, it should have replaced him. Now, he has had a heart transplant, a dangerous procedure from which many people do not recover. The board apparently will keep him on until he recovers, and beyond. The decision is irresponsible.

The board might make the case that Munoz is irreplaceable. That is nonsense. The industry has many competent senior executives. Interim CEO Brett J. Hart must have skills that make him the right candidate to take the top spot permanently, since he has been asked by the board to handle it for months.

Munoz may not return until the start of the second quarter. That assumes he does not have a setback. In light of the situation, investors have asked, or ought to, why Henry L. Meyer III, the chairman of the board of directors, has done nothing. He is more responsible than anyone else to resolve the problem.
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Munoz has been CEO since September 8, 2015, which is not long enough for his plans for the company to have been put into effect at all. The situation might be different if United had prospered tremendously under his long-term leadership.

Meyer and the balance of the board have a fiduciary duty to replace Munoz. And they have already taken far too many months.

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About the Author Douglas A. McIntyre →

Douglas A. McIntyre is the co-founder, chief executive officer and editor in chief of 24/7 Wall St. and 24/7 Tempo. He has held these jobs since 2006.

McIntyre has written thousands of articles for 24/7 Wall St. He is an expert on corporate finance, the automotive industry, media companies and international finance. He has edited articles on national demographics, sports, personal income and travel.

His work has been quoted or mentioned in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, The Washington Post, NBC News, Time, The New Yorker, HuffPost USA Today, Business Insider, Yahoo, AOL, MarketWatch, The Atlantic, Bloomberg, New York Post, Chicago Tribune, Forbes, The Guardian and many other major publications. McIntyre has been a guest on CNBC, the BBC and television and radio stations across the country.

A magna cum laude graduate of Harvard College, McIntyre also was president of The Harvard Advocate. Founded in 1866, the Advocate is the oldest college publication in the United States.

TheStreet.com, Comps.com and Edgar Online are some of the public companies for which McIntyre served on the board of directors. He was a Vicinity Corporation board member when the company was sold to Microsoft in 2002. He served on the audit committees of some of these companies.

McIntyre has been the CEO of FutureSource, a provider of trading terminals and news to commodities and futures traders. He was president of Switchboard, the online phone directory company. He served as chairman and CEO of On2 Technologies, the video compression company that provided video compression software for Adobe’s Flash. Google bought On2 in 2009.

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