CNBC just had a live update from Toulouse, France, that EADS, parent company of Airbus, has announced that they have abandoned their dual-CEO, dual-chairman structure, naming Louis Gallois, of France, as the CEO of EADS and Ruediger Grube, of Germany, as the Chairman, while Thomas Enders, also German, will assume the role of CEO of Airbus. The AP news article can be found here.

This is almost certainly a long overdue move, and quite frankly, EADS should have been smart enough to never set up such a structure to begin with. I believe that most execs would aggree that “co-” anything is almost always a bad idea, as “by committee” is a corporate euphemism for indecisive, unaccountable, and just generally bad.

This is a timely news item for me, as I just started reading John Newhouse’s Boeing Versus Airbus, and the EADS corporate structure is discussed in Chapter 1.

What will be the impact of this? In theory, it should allow for a more decisive EADS that can enact changes more quickly. However, only time will tell, and I suspect that, given EADS multi-national interests, the turf wars are not over and Mr. Gallois will still have his politicking cut out for him.