Indian American Charu Jain has been named vice president and chief information officer of Alaska Airlines by the airline’s board of directors. Jain comes to the airline from IBM Global Business Services, where she led the team helping American Airlines integrate its IT systems. Prior to that she worked 20 years at United Airlines in progressive roles from programmer to senior managing director of airline operations technology and technology integration before leaving the company in 2012.
As Alaska’s CIO, Jain will lead a department of more than 400 information technology professionals. “Charu’s experience as both an airline executive and consultant is perfectly suited to help Air Group successfully integrate Virgin America from a technology standpoint,” said Brandon Pedersen, Alaska Airlines executive vice president of finance and CFO. “Throughout her 24-year career, Charu has been able to blend thoughtful leadership with a focus on results and we’re excited to have her onboard.”
Alaska Airlines and Virgin America along with their regional partners, fly 40 million customers a year to 118 destinations with an average of 1,200 daily flights across the United States and to Mexico, Canada, Costa Rica and Cuba. With Alaska and Alaska’s global partners, customers can earn and redeem miles on flights to nearly 1,000 destinations in the U.S. and worldwide. Learn more about Alaska’s award-winning service and unmatched reliability atnewsroom.alaskaair.com and blog.alaskaair.com. Alaska Airlines, Virgin America and Horizon Air are subsidiaries of Alaska Air Group (NYSE: ALK).
Jain was previously with IBM Global Business Services, where she led the team helping American Airlines integrate its IT systems. Prior to that she worked for 20 years at United Airlines in progressive roles from programmer to senior managing director of airline operations technology and technology integration before leaving the company in 2012.