Textron eAviation names Kriya Shortt as its president & CEO, with Rob Scholl taking up same position at Textron Specialized Vehicles

Tex­tron announced ear­li­er this week that Kriya Shortt has been named the new pres­i­dent and CEO of Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion, effec­tive from August 31st.

She replaces Rob Scholl, who has been named pres­i­dent & CEO of Tex­tron Spe­cial­ized Vehi­cles.

Shortt has 27 years of expe­ri­ence with Tex­tron Avi­a­tion, hold­ing lead­er­ship posi­tions across its sales and mar­ket­ing and cus­tomer ser­vice func­tions.

Most recent­ly, she served as senior vice pres­i­dent, Glob­al Parts & Dis­tri­b­u­tion, and pres­i­dent of Able Aero­space and McCauley Pro­peller Sys­tems. She has also served as senior vice pres­i­dent, Cus­tomer Ser­vice, senior vice pres­i­dent, Sales, and vice pres­i­dent, Inter­na­tion­al Sales.

While Scholl has led Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion since its incep­tion as a busi­ness seg­ment in 2022, build­ing a team that is pur­su­ing Textron’s long-term strat­e­gy of devel­op­ing a fam­i­ly of sus­tain­able air­craft and over­see­ing the devel­op­ment and expan­sion of Pip­istrel.

He suc­ceeds Gun­nar Kleve­land in lead­ing the Tex­tron Spe­cial­ized Vehi­cles port­fo­lio of busi­ness­es that includes pow­er­ful brands such as E‑Z-GO, Arc­tic Cat, Jacob­sen, Cush­man, and Tex­tron Ground Sup­port Equip­ment. He will report to Joerg Raut­en­strauch, the pres­i­dent of the Indus­tri­al seg­ment.

With 17 years of expe­ri­ence at Tex­tron, He has served in lead­er­ship roles across the com­pa­ny, includ­ing senior vice pres­i­dent, Glob­al Sales & Flight Oper­a­tions, vice pres­i­dent, Parts & Pro­grams and vice pres­i­dent, Mar­ket­ing at Tex­tron Avi­a­tion.

Pri­or to join­ing Tex­tron Avi­a­tion in 2012, he served as direc­tor of Busi­ness Devel­op­ment at Textron’s CWC busi­ness and in the Cor­po­rate office in Sales & Mar­ket­ing and Strat­e­gy.

Shortt will report to Scott C. Don­nel­ly, Tex­tron chair­man & CEO, who said: “Rob and Kriya have served as out­stand­ing lead­ers at our respec­tive busi­ness­es and I am con­fi­dent they will con­tin­ue to dri­ve suc­cess in their new roles. I want to thank Gun­nar for his con­tri­bu­tions over the past four years and for his 20 years of ser­vice to our com­pa­ny.”

Last week, Tex­tron eAv­i­a­tion announced that fly­Ex­clu­sive will become the first mem­ber of its new Cus­tomer Advi­so­ry Board for devel­op­ment of Tex­tron eAviation’s Nexus eVTOL air­craft, hav­ing agreed to pro­vide input on oper­a­tor, pilot and pas­sen­ger pref­er­ences to inform devel­op­ment of the Nexus.