OREANDA-NEWS. The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA) today named company veteran John Bruns president of Boeing China, effective July 1.  He will be based in Beijing. 

As president of Boeing China, Bruns, 51, will serve as Boeing’s senior in-country executive and lead company-wide activities. He will be responsible for expanding Boeing’s local presence, for managing business partnerships, government affairs, and corporate citizenship. He will also develop and implement Boeing’s China strategy focused on new growth and productivity initiatives and relationships with customers and stakeholders in this key market.

“John is well-versed in every aspect of our China business and well-known by our Chinese stakeholders thanks to his stellar experience in the Chinese aviation sector over the past two-and-a-half decades,” said Marc Allen, president, Boeing International. “John’s leadership will carry on Boeing’s 40-plus year tradition of success in China, one of the world’s most dynamic markets for commercial aircraft.”

Bruns succeeds Ian Thomas, who is leaving Boeing in July for a senior role with a technology company based in California.   

Prior to this appointment, Bruns served as senior sales director for Northeast Asia, Boeing Commercial Airplanes. He joined McDonnell Douglas in 1986 and worked in Engineering Test & Evaluation. In 1990, he was assigned to the McDonnell Douglas China Program Office in Long Beach, and then moved to Beijing in 1994 as deputy to the president of McDonnell Douglas/China.  After the merger between Boeing and McDonnell Douglas in 1997, Bruns joined the Boeing Commercial Airplanes Sales organization and led numerous successful airplane sales campaigns with Chinese airlines and leasing companies.  Bruns was assigned to Beijing for a second time from 2007 to 2015.

Boeing forecasts that China will need 6,330 new airplanes that are worth more than $950 billion over the next 20 years. This demand will make China Boeing’s largest commercial airplane customer. Last year, China became the first country outside the United States to take delivery of more than 1,000 Boeing airplanes.

For more than 40 years, Boeing has been privileged to serve in the development of China’s air transport system. Today, more than 50 percent of the commercial jetliners operating in China are Boeing airplanes. At the same time, more than 9,000 Boeing airplanes fly throughout the world with parts and assemblies built in China. China has a role in every Boeing commercial airplane model: the 737, 747, 767, 777 and the newest and most innovative airplane, the 787 Dreamliner.