AirAsia Announces Internal Promotion

SEPANG, 4th JANUARY 2013 – AirAsia, the world’s best low cost airline four years running announced today the promotion of Siegtraund Teh to Group Chief Commercial Officer. With this position, Siegtraund will take on the responsibility of Kathleen Tan, the current Group Head of Commercial whom has accepted a position as Chief Executive Officer at AirAsia Expedia. Siegtraund’s main responsibility will be to manage the commercial team and deliver commercial performance improvements across the AirAsia group.

A core member of the AirAsia regional team, Siegtraund brings with her a wealth of experience principally gained from a senior level commercial role with AirAsia.

AirAsia Group Chief Executive Officer, Tan Sri Tony Fernandes said “These promotions are part of the process of putting the right people in place to be ready for that continued growth. As AirAsia progress towards the second decade of success, we feel comfortable in letting Kathleen move to AirAsia Expedia. Our focus for the next five years is ancillary and adjacent businesses and the potential of AirAsia Expedia is enormous. Having Kathleen driving the business gives me huge encouragement and I am sure AAE and the OTA industry will escalate tremendously when Kathleen gets to work her unique style of brand-building, sales and profits growth”.

“On the other hand, Siegtraund has been a tremendous contributor to our commercial success. A person with strong commercial focus, a huge thirst for continuous improvement and an excellent understanding of our business goals. Her dedication in delivering work of the highest professional standards has ensured the achievement of objectives and other business requirements. I am confident that she will be able to build on our creative commercial strengths and take the airline forward.

“Our ability to continue to develop and promote from within is one of our most important values. AirAsia has succeeded so well because we always have a deep reservoir of talents, and we are able to grow and change because we always have people ready to step up. We are constantly grooming in-house talents and rewarding them in the most tangible ways – by inviting them to step up to bigger and more challenging roles as we grow and expand. We invest substantially in our own talent as it secures continued growth and push us to position ourselves as an even stronger industry leader” he added.

Siegtraund joined the commercial function in 2007. She played a crucial role in laying down AirAsia’s footprints into North Asia, especially China. Siegtraund was part of the team responsible in building the vast network and launching new routes. In her regional role, she aligned all aspects of regional campaigns responsible for the development of comprehensive plans to ensure the success of multi-channel initiatives in marketing.

Siegtraund has taken on increasingly senior marketing roles over the years. In 2012, Siegtraund was seconded to AirAsia Japan to assist in building the commercial and marketing start-up of that new entity, whilst continuing with her role as Group Marketing Manager.