OREANDA-NEWS. December 18, 2015. Boeing (NYSE: BA) has elected Heidi B. Capozzi, 46, a corporate senior vice president, and named her to replace Tony Parasida as the company's human resources leader effective March 1, 2016.

Parasida, senior vice president of Human Resources and Administration, has announced his intent to retire this spring after a 38-year Boeing career. Capozzi, who leads the company's talent and leadership development function, joins the Boeing executive council of company officers immediately.

"Heidi Capozzi is a strong, experienced human resources leader who advocates for employees, collaborates to find solutions, and has a passion for developing leaders and our talent pipeline," said Boeing President and CEO Dennis Muilenburg. "With a broad set of industry experiences, she brings great perspective to this important new assignment and the investments we are making in our people and teams."

Capozzi will begin working with Parasida to ensure a smooth transition.

In describing Parasida's nearly four decades at Boeing, Muilenburg said, "Tony will leave a deep and diverse legacy of achievement across our businesses and functions.  We are grateful for his leadership of the V-22 Osprey, F/A-18 Super Hornet, military commercial derivatives, Global Services & Support, and then successfully bringing a business leader's perspective to the challenges of preparing human resources strategies for our second century. He has our gratitude and best wishes in his retirement." 

Also effective March 1, Parasida's administrative responsibilities, which include the company's corporate administration, shared services support organization and global corporate citizenship activities will transition to Diana Sands, senior vice president, Office of Internal Governance and Administration, and executive council member. 

"Diana Sands is a proven, capable leader on our senior team with the capacity, capabilities and experience to take on additional roles and responsibilities," Muilenburg said.

In her current assignment, Capozzi leads the team responsible for identifying and developing emerging leadership talent within the company. This includes running the company's leadership center in suburban St. Louis, where the company invests in immersive talent and leadership training experiences.

Since joining Boeing in 2009, Capozzi has held senior leadership assignments in human resources for both the Boeing Commercial Airplanes and Boeing Defense, Space & Security business units. Before that, she led human resources, internal services, and quality at the Boeing Insitu subsidiary. 

Prior to Boeing, Capozzi worked in leadership roles in human resources, compensation, and communications at Northrop Grumman and TRW. She earned a bachelor's degree from Oberlin College in political science and Asian studies, and holds a master's degree in human resources and industrial relations from the University of Minnesota.

Prior to her current role, Sands served Boeing in numerous finance roles as controller, in investor relations and financial planning, and in the treasury organization. She came to the company in 2001 after serving in leadership roles in finance at General Motors, Ameritech Communications, Helene Curtis and Arthur Andersen. 

Parasida began his career at Boeing in 1978 at the company's Philadelphia operations as a structures engineer on helicopter programs. Since that time, he has held numerous roles of increasing responsibility within aircraft design, Integrated Product Team leadership and program and general management.