Diving in

The remaking of EADS under Tom Enders

The boss of Europe’s biggest aerospace company walks purposefully into the business lounge of the Canberra hotel. Dr Tom Enders is taller than you think, trim and with his thinning hair neatly-trimmed short, it is not hard to envisage that one of Europe’s most significant business figures was once an army paratrooper, Pleasantries exchanged, Enders removes his jacket, sits down at the small table and begins to roll his sleeves up.

It seems a neat analogy. Likely Enders was just making himself comfortable, but since taking the reins of EADS in May 2012 there is no doubt that Enders has rolled up his sleeves and got down to the business of reshaping Europe’s biggest aerospace conglomerate, the parent company of Airbus, Eurocopter, Astrium and Cassidian formed from the 2000 merger of France’s Aerospatiale-Matra, Germany’s DASA and Spain’s CASA.