In message , at 17:03:19 on
Tue, 13 May 2008, Paul Scott remarked:
According to The Times today, Heathrow's managing director is leaving
with immediate effect. What is surprising is that the replacement lined
up is Mike Brown, currently chief operating officer at London
Underground.

Perhaps they chose him because his current organisation manages to run
trains successfully at Heathrow?

Or perhaps he decided to look for another job now that Boris is mayor.

I was thinking more about the difference between running an airport compared
to a railway - I would have thought the chief operating officer of LU was
somewhat removed from the political scene?

I don't know anything about Mike Brown or his role at LU, but COO is
usually the job title of a "management accountant" who holds the
spending budget [1] and is effectively 'Deputy CEO', and is also into
politics. It's quite a different role to an "operations manager".

[1] As opposed to a financial accountant who is a bean counter, tax and
corporate law specialist.
--
Roland Perry