Pakistan-Origin Saadia Zahidi Named First Woman to Lead IATA

GENEVA/KARACHI: A Pakistan-born economist with two decades at the World Economic Forum will take over as the top executive of the world's airline industry. IATA's board named Saadia Zahidi as its next Director General on Wednesday, the first woman to hold the post since the association's founding.

Zahidi starts November 1. She is IATA's ninth Director General overall, and she comes from outside the aviation industry a departure for a body that has traditionally drawn its leadership from airline executives.

She replaces Willie Walsh, who leaves July 31 after steering IATA through the pandemic collapse and recovery. Walsh's next stop is IndiGo, where he takes over as CEO of India's largest carrier. IATA's finance chief, Sandrine Le Borgne, fills the gap as interim Director General over the three-month handover.

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The organisation Zahidi inherits carries weight: over 370 member airlines, roughly 85 percent of global air traffic between them.

Board chair Roberto Alvo, who also runs LATAM Airlines, credited Walsh's tenure with leaving IATA "stronger and with a more representative membership" than before, and said Zahidi's background positions her to navigate the technology and geopolitical shifts now bearing down on the industry.

Zahidi framed her own priorities around keeping airlines connected to governments and partners through what she called a period of rapid change for the sector, with resilience and sustainability high on her list.

Her CV reads more think tank than tarmac. At the WEF she built and still runs the Centre for the New Economy and Society, and put her name behind some of the Forum's best-known research the Future of Jobs Report, the Future of Growth Report, the Global Gender Gap Report. She has also sat on the UN Secretary-General's panel on Women's Economic Empowerment and the European Space Agency's advisory group, and wrote "Fifty Million Rising," a book on the growth of women's employment across the Muslim world.