United Airlines announced that Keith Halbert has been named senior vice president and Chief Information Officer. Halbert joins United from Electronic Data Systems (EDS), where he was vice president and CIO. In his new role, Halbert will oversee all aspects of United’s information technology functions, including corporate IT strategy, applications development, technical operations, information security and infrastructure planning.

‘To strengthen our business we put a strategic plan in place that includes 250 initiatives and a planned $4 billion capital investment over the next five years,’ says John Tague, executive vice president, United Airlines. ‘Having a proven transformational leader like Keith is critical to successfully executing this plan, and ensuring that we have the infrastructure and systems in place to improve our service to customers and provide better support to our employees.’

While at EDS, Halbert led the company’s digital transformation efforts and implemented a three-year IT transformation plan that has consistently improved the company’s performance and reduced its operating expenses.

Prior to joining EDS, Halbert served as managing director of Knowledge Management for The Feld Group, Inc., a privately held technology management consultancy acquired by EDS, where he jointly developed a CIO management system that was deployed in six major companies. While at Feld, Halbert also held several in-house leadership positions, including a three-year role as senior vice president and chief development officer for Delta Airlines where he developed and implemented applications and infrastructure to support Delta’s customer experience, revenue management, airline operations and enterprise shared services business strategies.

While at Feld, Halbert also served for two years as senior vice president and chief development officer for First Data Resources, where he developed and led a multi-year IT transformation effort focused on restructuring legacy systems to improve client service. He also served in a one-year role as senior vice president and chief development officer for Home Depot where he developed and led their IT transformation effort that improved their channel execution, enabled the supply chain, enhanced the customer experience and increased trade partner collaboration.

‘I am thrilled to be joining United at a time when they are focused on strengthening the performance of the company,’ said Keith Halbert. ‘I see this as a tremendous opportunity to build on the great work United already has underway to transform the IT organization to support the company’s vision to be the global airline of choice for premium customers, employees and investors.’

Halbert will assume his role on Jan. 11, 2008, and will report to Tague.
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