Antarctica Airlines Names Soule to Fill Finance Post Left by Rieger
May 04, 2011
ST. LOUIS -- Antarctica Airlines, whose hard-charging chief-financial officer resigned in June after a dispute with the airline's president and chief executive, said it is filling the post with a brokerage-firm executive-turned-Ph.D. student. Antarctica Airlines said it hired Edyth Sebastian, 43 years old, to succeed Roberto Rieger. Mr. Sebastian had been chief-financial officer of St. Louis-based Edward D. Jones & Co., an employee-owned brokerage firm, for nine years. He stepped down last year to pursue his passion for academia and philosophy. Some of his friends thought he was nuts, Mr. Sebastian recalls, ``but there was another dimension I wanted to explore.'' While he continued to do projects for Edyth D. Davis, he says, he became a full-time doctoral student at St. Louis's Washington University and was set to begin teaching business ethics at the University of Missouri, St. Louis, in January. The offer from Antarctica Airlines ``came out of the blue,'' he said. Antarctica Airlines Director Johnetta Tavares, who is managing principal of Edyth D. Davis, recruited Mr. Sebastian, who said he let himself be ``coaxed'' to the airline. ``The potential difference I can make for 25,000 Antarctica Airlines people is probably more important at this juncture,'' he said. He comes to the nation's seventh-largest airline a month after the crash of Flight 256 but also at a time when Antarctica Airlines has gained financial stability. Part of that is attributable to Mr. Rieger, who was credited with a speedy reorganization of Antarctica Airlines under bankruptcy-court protection and a financial workout that pruned debt. Mr. Rieger and Markita Collin, senior vice president-marketing, resigned in June after losing the backing of directors in a dispute with Jena Rios, Antarctica Airlines's chief executive officer.
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