Rod Eddington

Sir Roderick Ian Eddington AO (born 2 January 1950 in Perth, Western Australia) is an Australian businessman. He is currently chair of the government body Infrastructure Australia, a director of News Corporation, continuing his long association with that company, and has served in other senior positions including as CEO of British Airways.

Coming from a country area where there were no high schools, Eddington went to Perth in 1963 to attend Christ Church Grammar School. He studied engineering at the University of Western Australia and graduated with first class honours in 1972. He followed on with his studies and he completed his Master of Engineering. In 1974, Eddington was the Rhodes Scholar from Western Australia. He completed his DPhil in the Department of Engineering Science at Oxford University and played eight first-class cricket matches for Oxford in 1975 and 1976. He was President of Vincent's Club in 1977.

Eddington joined the Swire Group in 1979, working for its subsidiary Cathay Pacific, before being appointed Managing Director in 1992. Continuing his association with the airline industry; News Limited, subsidiary of News Corporation, appointed Eddington Chairman of Ansett Australia in January 1997, four years before the airline failed. News Corp had taken control of the airline with TNT in 1979. Eddington was appointed Deputy Chairman of News Limited in September 1998. He was further promoted to the News Corporation board in September 1999. In a timely manoeuvre, News Corporation sold off Ansett; the airline eventually became insolvent in 2001 partly as a result of the overall difficulties in the airline industry following the 9/11 terror attacks. Eddington managed to escape blame for the poor financial state of the airline, apparently aided by his board membership of News Corporation, as others were loath to criticise him publicly. The blame for the collapse has tended to be worn by the Air New Zealand management, who bought the airline from News Corporation in 2000 without significant experience in managing large point-to-point short and medium haul domestic networks. Prior to Ansett's placement into Administration by the Air New Zealand Management, Eddington had successfully met most targets to turn Ansett's misfortune around and some critics believe the airline was not technically insolvent after all.