Boeing CEO's Task: Get the Dreamliner Airborne Again

There are chief executives who like to project themselves as visionaries intent on devising grand strategies to transform their companies. That’s not the case for Boeing CEO James McNerney, who inherited a game plan set years before he was recruited to lead the aerospace giant in 2005. Boeing had by then committed billions of dollars to building the 787 Dreamliner, a lightweight, all-composite plane that promised to leapfrog rivals technologically and help airlines reduce their soaring fuel bills by as much as 20 percent. Carriers have become enamored by the prospect: About eight hundred 787s are on order, worth about $175 billion in sales, based on the plane’s list price.

The Boeing board tapped McNerney for the top job because the former General Electric executive had earned a reputation for deftly managing costs and complicated production regimens. His assignment was to turn the Dreamliner from a previous regime’s vision into a profitable reality. “The thing the company has to get right is the 787,” McNerney said in 2006, months after his arrival. “Executing that program is our biggest opportunity and our biggest risk if we don’t do it well.”