Lufthansa loses ‘well-regarded’ CFO as Menne makes surprise exit

Lufthansa CFO Simone Menne will step down effective Aug. 31, in a surprise departure. Menne, 56, will resign to “pursue individual career options,” the company said Thursday, adding that it would choose a successor shortly. Menne, a member of the carrier’s board since 2012, said last year that she eventually wanted to head a company in the DAX30, Germany’s benchmark stock index. “It’s a surprise, there was no indication that this might happen,” said Gerald Khoo, an analyst at Liberium Capital Limited. “She is well-regarded by investors. They will want to know why this happened, and why it happened now. It’s unusual given Lufthansa’s history of succession planning.” Lufthansa, led by CEO Carsten Spohr, has reined in expansion plans as a glut of plane seats depresses ticket prices and travelers delay bookings amid fears of terror attacks. Capacity growth this year will trail the previous target of 6%, Spohr said last month. A graduate in business administration, Menne began her professional career in the auditing department of ITT in the US in 1987 before joining Lufthansa as an auditor in April 1989. Ten years later she took over the airline’s financial management and human resources in southwest Europe, rising to the same position for all of Europe two years after that. “In Simone Menne we are losing an experienced executive who has proven her worth time and again in her long Lufthansa career,” Supervisory Board Chairman Wolfgang Mayrhuber said.<br/>