British Airways CIO Paul Coby has created new roles in an IT department re-shuffle which will see Dave Weston become Head of IT Operations and Mike Croucher become Head of IT Development and Integration.

The moves follow the tragic death of Peter Radcliffe, Director IT Delivery, in September and involve splitting the areas for which Peter was responsible. The appointments follow internal competitions within the airline.

Paul Coby said: “Peter made an enormous contribution to the IT department and we feel his sad and untimely death immensely.

“Peter`s experience and breadth of skills was unique within the airline and so I have taken the opportunity to recognise the key roles of Development and Integration, IT Operations and Resourcing as full members of my department’s Leadership Team.”

Dave Weston, 54, becomes responsible for the total operation of and support for British Airways IT systems worldwide.

Married with two grown-up daughters, Dave joined the British Airways predecessor BEA in 1966. He moved into the airline’s IT department in1969 as a Trainee Computer Operator and moved through the ranks to become Operations Manager in the mid 1980s.

He then became Manager of Distributed Systems Services in 1990 before moving onto Operations Manager for the single operational team in 1996.

Dave has extensive operational knowledge of mainframe and distributed/midrange systems, network operation and desktop services. In his latest role as Service Delivery Manager, he worked with numerous service partners to deliver and support systems worldwide.
Mike Croucher, 44, moves into his new role from his current position as Head of IT for the Customer Services and Operations department.

Mike joined British Airways in 1999 as General Manager IT Airline Operations, having previously been Director of Subscriber Products at Galileo International.

Married with a ten year old son, Mike has 20 years experience in the IT travel industry initially working in the IT department at Scandinavian Airlines on a range of operational systems.

Mike has a extensive IT development background gained across multi platforms and experience in running large IT development organisations.

The final piece of the re-shuffle will see Kim Pettigrew, currently General Manager Resource Management report directly to the CIO as Head of Skills and Resourcing.

Kim, 43, joined the airline in 1988 having previously worked in the NHS and for Coca-Cola. Following several senior HR roles, Kim became Head of Customer Service Training for the airline in 1996. With an Organisation Design background and having developed resource pools in other areas of the airline, Kim moved into the IT Department in 1999 with a brief to create a Resource Pool for all the Application Development and Support IT people. The Pool now covers all of the Im Department. Married with three children, Kim has now added responsibility for skills development and resourcing the Infrastructure and Service Delivery teams.

Paul Coby said “I am pleased to welcome Dave, Mike and Kim onto my top team. I know they will make very significant contributions to the future of Im and our Airline”.

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