Dive Brief:

• Fluor announced the appointment of a new CEO yesterday, the third chief executive to head the Irving, Texas-based firm in two years.
• David E. Constable, a member of the Fluor board of directors, will take over on Jan. 1, succeeding Carlos Hernandez, who will retire as CEO and a member of the board at the end of the year, the company said in a statement.
• From 1982 to 2011, Constable held various leadership roles within the global engineering and construction firm — most recently as group president of operations — before returning as a board member in 2019. From 2011 to 2016, he served as CEO of South African energy and chemical company Sasol Ltd.

Dive Insight:

The appointment follows a "comprehensive external search," said Alan Boeckmann, executive chairman of the board, who added that Constable was chosen for his "deep insight to Fluor and an outside perspective from his prior experience as CEO of Sasol."

"His successful history of leading integrated global operations with a focus on effective risk management makes him ideally positioned to lead Fluor," Boeckmann said in the statement.

Constable will take the helm after a rocky period in the company. A Securities and Exchange Commission investigation into the firm's past accounting and financial reporting delayed the filing of Fluor's 2019 and 2020 financial statements and in May, the company announced that it received a Justice Department subpoena seeking documents relating to charges reported by the company during the second quarter of 2019. 

In addition, a special committee of independent members of the board of directors also reviewed past financial information and is sharing its findings with federal investigators. The SEC review is still ongoing.

Then in September, Fluor announced that is had suspended its guidance for 2020, due to "a significant shift in end markets in 2020 driven by volatility in commodity prices and the global disruption from the COVID-19 pandemic."

Hernandez, formerly Fluor's chief legal officer, took over as CEO in May 2019 after David Seaton abruptly resigned on the same day the company reported a net loss of $58 million for the first quarter of 2019.

In announcing Constable's appointment, Boeckmann lauded Hernandez for overseeing the company's recent strategic review, lowering its portfolio risk and strengthening its balance sheet.

“As a result, Fluor is on the right track,” Boeckmann said.

Other public construction firms have announce major leadership changes in recent months. In June, AECOM announced that CFO W. Troy Rudd would take over as CEO, assuming the role from Michael S. Burke, who announced plans to retire last fall. 

And in September, Granite Construction announced that chief operations officer Kyle T. Larkin had been named as the company's president and principal executive officer, succeeding James H. Roberts, who also retired.