James Kennedy,
the former T Rowe Price Group CEO who retired at the start of this year, is
among three new appointees to the United Continental Holdings board of
directors.
Kennedy is
joined on the 15-member board by airline industry veteran Robert Milton, the
former Air Canada CEO, and James Whitehurst, CEO of the IT company Red Hat and
a former Delta COO.
All three men
must be nominated by the board for election at United’s annual shareholders’
meeting, which has not yet been scheduled. United held its shareholders’
meeting in June last year.
United says three board members will step down at or before the shareholders' meeting
to make room for Kennedy, Milton and Whitehurst.
United also plans
to make one more replacement to the board before the 2016 shareholders’
meeting, the company said.
The announcement
of the new directors came on the same day that United announced that CEO Oscar
Munoz would return to full-time work on March 14. Munoz suffered a heart attack
last Oct. 15, less than six weeks after replacing Jeff Smisek, who resigned as
United’s top executive amid a corruption probe.