NetJets’ new chief has been learning fast

“We knew this was coming, in a general sense. ... (Sokol) had been saying he was going to step back for a long time,” Hansell said. “We’ve created a firm foundation for NetJets’ future, a large part of which is a 10-year plan. We’re going to be executing on that.”

Sokol had run NetJets since mid-2009, when Berkshire chief Warren Buffett tapped Sokol to turn around the company. More than that, he oversaw other Berkshire holdings and was considered one of the leading candidates to replace Buffett when the company’s founder retires.

Adding intrigue to the news was the revelation that Sokol had bought a large stake in Lubrizol, a chemical-maker based in Wickliffe, near Cleveland, shortly before advising Buffett that the company could be a good acquisition for Berkshire. That action has stirred much debate about the legality and ethics of the move, something likely to play out in the months ahead.

For now, it has resulted in a whirlwind of change at NetJets, which employs more than 1,300 in Columbus and only recently reversed fortunes by turning large losses into profits.

Just under a year ago, Hansell, Adam Johnson and Bill Noe of NetJets attended the Berkshire Hathaway annual meeting in Omaha, Neb., for the first time; the event draws tens of thousands to the altar of Buffett.

Later this month, Hansell will be thrust into the spotlight when he attends the Berkshire annual meeting as the newly minted chairman and CEO of NetJets.

Hansell also will preside over a groundbreaking ceremony on Tuesday for NetJets’ new headquarters building at Port Columbus, and he will guide the company’s worldwide growth, including its planned entry into China over the next couple of years.

One of Sokol’s moves was to hire Hansell from a Des Moines, Iowa, law firm that had done work for Berkshire-owned MidAmerican Energy.

Hansell said that although his tenure at NetJets has been fairly short, it has been intense and often feels longer. “I feel like it’s been dog years,” he said, joking.

Although Sokol never appointed a CEO during his 19 months at NetJets, he was starting to delegate, step back from daily operations and prepare his young management team to execute the 10-year plan he put in place. He even brought in the big boss, Buffett himself, to address NetJets managers at a company meeting early this year.

Sokol has expressed strong confidence in the team that remains.

“Jordan has demonstrated a real ability to manage,” Sokol told CNBC in a 30-minute interview the morning after his resignation was announced. “NetJets is doing terrifically,” he said, praising Noe, the North America chief; Johnson, the sales and marketing services president; and Brent Smith, chief financial officer. All are company veterans.

Sokol’s sudden departure leads to questions regarding succession planning at Berkshire, said Greggory Warren, senior stock analyst with Morningstar.

However, he said, the management of NetJets itself won’t keep investors up at night because it’s such a small piece of Berkshire. “It’s in that category of ‘other,’  ” Warren said, referring to the catch-all category in which Berkshire reports many of its noninsurance and energy businesses.

Scott Liston, a Columbus-based executive with Aviation Research Group/U.S. who worked for NetJets from 1985 to 2000, said he’s not concerned about a leadership void at NetJets. Many of these executives were schooled in the customer service and safety values instilled by longtime CEO Richard Santulli, he said.

Santulli pioneered what has become NetJets’ core business, a venture that lets customers buy fractional ownership of business-class jets that are staffed and operated by NetJets.

“Jordan’s job has to be to not get in their way, to let them do their jobs while he deals with the high-level corporate stuff,” Liston said.

Sokol had been “working with this handpicked management team to groom them to take over,” Liston said. “Sokol was a big-time manager; he had a lot of horsepower. But he was also the bad guy to many employees, because he’s the one who came in and did layoffs and got tough. So in a way, his leaving might give the new guys a chance to do their jobs without that looming over them.”

Hansell has an opportunity to combine the best aspects of both Sokol’s and Santulli’s styles, said Dan Dugger, another former NetJets employee who left in 2006 after 12 years to establish South Carolina-based fractional-share broker FracTrade.

“Sokol had a job. He had to go in and deal with some things that were considered sacred but had to change for the health of the company,” Dugger said.

But Dugger also praised Santulli’s more-personal, friendly style and his focus on customer service.

As long as service and safety remain paramount, NetJets should be fine, Dugger said. “I’m not worried about Sokol leaving. Their owners could care less about the management,” Dugger said. “What they’re looking at is, ‘Is my airplane going to arrive on time, is my catering order going to be what I ordered, are the costs going to change?’  ”