Indeed, the new moves suggest that the board is now leaning toward an outside pick. That's a big shift from what appeared to constitute the previous succession plan. In mid-December of 2023, Boeing announced that Pope would rise to COO, making her Calhoun's heir apparent. Pope is primarily an excellent financial manager, having served as CFO of commercial airplanes, services, and the defense franchises. But the Alaska Airlines disaster that occurred just one week after Pope took the top operating job, and the many revelations exposing Boeing's quality-control problems since then, made repairing its manufacturing machine (rather than honing financial management), job one. Pope may have a shot still—after all Boeing just made her head of the commercial airlines sector that's spawned all the pain, despite her background as a financial manager rather than manufacturing specialist—but her chances appear increasingly slim.