Union Pacific Corp on Wednesday named former chief operating officer Jim Vena as its top boss, months after CEO Lance Fritz said he was stepping down, sending the U.S. railroad operator’s shares up about 7.6% in premarket trading.
Vena, who will take the top job on Aug. 14, started his career in 1976 and was in the reckoning to lead Canadian National Railway Co after investors backed him for the role.
He has worked under the late Hunter Harrison at Canadian National, who pioneered Precision Scheduled Railroading (PSR), which is commonly used across the industry today.
Fritz said in February that he would step down after shareholder Soroban Capital Partners pressured the company for a leadership change.
Union Pacific, which connects 23 states in the western part of the country by rail, also elected Mike McCarthy as its board chairman.
The company reported second-quarter profit of $2.54 per share, missing analysts’ average estimate of $2.75 per share, according to Refinitiv IBES data, as its shipments fell.
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The railroad industry has been struggling with railcar shortages resulting in shipment delays and supply-chain disruptions.
(Reporting by Nathan Gomes and Amna Karimi in Bengaluru; Editing by Anil D’Silva and Vinay Dwivedi)