Christoph Mueller

For the ski jumper, see Christoph Müller.

Christoph R. Mueller (born 17 December 1961) is the Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Malaysia Airlines. With over 25 years experience as a turnaround specialist in the aviation, logistic and tourism industry, Mueller has been widely credited with the financial recovery of Irish airline Aer Lingus.

Career

After qualifying as an accountant, Mueller graduated in 1988 from the University of Cologne with an MBA and subsequently completed an Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School in 1999. In 1989, Mueller joined German airline Lufthansa as a financial analyst in the internal audit department. From 1991 to 1994 he was a financial controller with Daimler-Benz Aerospace where he implemented restructuring programmes in the subsidiaries Elbe Flugzeugwerke, Dresden, Dornier and Fokker in Amsterdam. He re-joined Lufthansa as Senior Vice President Finance in 1994 and became Executive Vice President in Corporate Planning and Network Management. In 1999 he joined Belgian airline Sabena as CEO. Mueller’s work there was cut short following the September 11 attacks in 2001 and the subsequent downturn in the airline industry, which saw the company filing for bankruptcy. Mueller raised funds and founded Brussels Airlines, which started operations a day after the grounding of Sabena, where he remained Chairman until 2002. He later served as the Chief Financial Officer of DHL Worldwide where he was responsible for the successful turnaround programme which led to an improved bottom line of USD300 million within a year.

In his expansive career in the aviation and logistic industry, Mueller was also the Executive Aviation Director at Tui Travel plc. a FTSE 100 company, where he restructured the entire lease portfolio and order book of seven airlines with a total fleet of 170 aircraft. In 2009, Mueller was appointed CEO of Irish airline Aer Lingus, steering the loss making company through difficult times and turning the company to profit in less than one year. Under his stewardship, the Irish airline improved operating results from a loss of EUR81 million to EUR72 million in profit in a shrinking Irish market. Mueller successfully expanded the airline’s Trans- Atlantic services, repositioning it as a more service oriented carrier. During his time in Ireland, he was also appointed to the board of Tourism Ireland and as Chairman of An Post. In 2015, he left Ireland to take up the CEO position at Malaysia Airlines, a company struggling after two air incidents, MH370 and MH17 as well as competition from low budget airline Air Asia. Mueller joined the airline after it was taken private and the subsequent announcement of 6000 job cuts, roughly a third of the workforce. Mueller was previously President of IATA, the international Air Carrier Association in Brussels and Chairman of the Advisory Board of Eurocontrol. He has served as a Non Executive Director in multiple companies amongst others, LOT, Luxair, Lauda Air, Tuifly and Hapag-Lloyd Shipping.