United Continental Holdings promoted Brett Hart after CEO Oscar Munoz suffered a heart attack. The company said that alongside his legal duties, Mr Hart oversaw government and regulatory affairs, corporate real estate, customer experience, corporate security, community affairs, contact centres and food services. Before joining the airline, in 2010, he was executive vice president, general counsel and corporate secretary at Sara Lee, a partner at Sonnenschein Nath & Rosenthal, and a special assistant to the general counsel at the Treasury Department.
Increasing responsiblity
Henry Meyer III, United’s nonexecutive chairman, said in a statement announcing the appointment: 'Brett has taken on increasing responsibility beyond general counsel over the last few years in the operations and customer-facing areas of the company. I am confident in his ability to continue to implement the company’s strategy and Oscar’s mission of bringing United’s people together around the shared purpose of becoming the best airline for our customers and employees.'
GCs as CEOs
It is part of a trend in recent times which has seen general counsel moving into mainstream roles in companies. Recently a number of companies have chosen general counsel to become CEO. Consulting group Accenture promoted its general counsel Julie Spellman Sweet to group chief executive for North America. AOL's Huffington Post has hired Jared Grusd, previously Spotify's global head of corporate development and general counsel, as its new CEO.
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