Air Serbia has named Jiri Marek, currently the airline’s General Manager Commercial and Strategy, as Chief Executive Officer effective January 1st, 2022. Mr. Marek will succeed Duncan Naysmith, who has served as CEO for the last four years.
On Thursday (December 23, 2021), Air Serbia, the national airline of the Republic of Serbia, announce the appointment of Jiri Marek as the carrier’s new Chief Executive Officer effective January 1st, 2022. Mr. Marek will succeed Duncan Naysmith who has served as the company’s CEO for the last four years and is leaving to pursue a new career opportunity with another airline. Jiri Marek has over 20 years of airline management experience and currently service as Air Serbia’s General Manager Commercial and Strategy. Duncan Naysmith will assist in the leadership transition, with Mr. Marek assuming full management responsibilities on January 1st.
In Thursday’s announcement, Air Serbia’s Chairman of the Supervisory Board, Branislav Pejčić, said,
“On behalf of the Supervisory Board, I extend my personal thanks to Duncan Naysmith, who had been navigating the company through successful transformation program enabling the growth of Air Serbia in 2019, this outstanding path unfortunately had been disrupted by outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic. Particularly I would like to appreciate his dedication, effort and leadership during current pandemic, steering Air Serbia through unprecedented turbulent times.
“Air Serbia is rapidly recovering, aiming to achieve 2019 pre-pandemic levels by 2023 and consequently to embark on the continuous growth phase as regional leader. The airline is a symbol of national pride and its continuous success is testament to its dedicated workforce, holding fundamental supporting role during pandemic, enabling sufficient inflow of medical materials, vaccines and safe return of stranded citizens around the globe.
“Jiri Marek had been leading network expansion and commercial transformation to be delivering record breaking results at the end of 2019 of 2.8 million passengers, continued by double digit growth in first two months of 2020. Air Serbia had been continuously outperforming aviation industry averages ever since during the pandemic and promptly reacted on new market opportunities. He is an experienced leader and has the complete confidence of the Board to lead the business throughout its recovery and development phase.”
Source: Air Serbia