JetBlue has appointed Laurie Villa as Chief People Officer effective June 2021. Ms. Villa joins JetBlue from Spirit Airlines, where she has served as the airline’s Chief Human Resources Officer for the past six and a half years.
On Tuesday (May 25, 2021), JetBlue announced the appointment of Laurie Villa as the airline’s new Chief People Officer effective June 2021. In her new role she will report directly to JetBlue’s CEO, Robin Hayes, and will be responsible for engaging crewmembers, fostering the company’s unique culture, compensation and benefits, diversity, values, labor relations, recruiting, talent management and JetBlue University. Ms. Villa succeeds JetBlue’s current Chief People Officer, Mike Elliott, who has been with the airline since 2010 and will leave the company after the transition is complete in August.
In Tuesday’s announcement, JetBlue’s CEO, Robin Hayes, said,
“For over a decade, Mike has been one of our fiercest culture champions and an advocate for the People team and all of our Crewmembers. As we grew and evolved our business, he never forgot the needs of our crewmembers and tirelessly worked to protect our unique culture as a competitive advantage. I am thankful to Mike for all he has done over the past ten years, but I am especially grateful for thoughtfully leading this transition effort and for delaying his plans to move on from JetBlue because of the pandemic. He has certainly earned some well-deserved time off after a year of unprecedented challenge and so many years of service to our people.”
“Even though we must say goodbye to Mike, I’m thrilled to welcome Laurie to JetBlue as we begin a historic rebound in travel and continue to transform our People and training functions to support our crewmembers in the new landscape. Laurie has deep knowledge of our industry and a love for the JetBlue brand. I’m confident she’ll be a terrific addition to the senior leadership team and will help inspire our crewmembers as we tackle new challenges in our industry and work to bring greater diversity and equity to JetBlue.”
Laurie Villa Joins JetBlue with over 20 years of leadership, most recently as Chief Human Resources Officer at Spirit Airlines, a position she has held for the past six and a half years. At Spirit, she leveraged data and analytics to improve the employee and guest experiences, strengthened the airline’s culture and engagement and grew their talent pipeline. Prior to joining Spirit Airlines, she worked to shape effective people and talent strategies in several industries including consumer goods, specialty retail, education and technology.
JetBlue is New York’s Hometown Airline® and a leading carrier in Boston (BOS), Fort Lauderdale (FLL), Los Angeles (LAX), Orlando (MCO) and San Juan (SJU). The airline carries guests to destinations across the U.S., Caribbean, Latin America. JetBlue Airways Corporation trades on the NASDAQ under the ticker symbol JBLU.
Source: JetBlue