Union Pacific Corporation (UNP) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 26, 2023 8:45 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Greetings and welcome to the Union Pacific Second Quarter Earnings Call. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, this conference is being recorded, and the slides for today's presentation are available on Union Pacific's website.

At this time, it's now my pleasure to introduce your host, Mr. Lance Fritz, Chairman, President and CEO for Union Pacific. Mr. Fritz, you may begin.

Lance Fritz

Thank you, Rob, and good morning and welcome to Union Pacific's second quarter earnings conference call. With me today in Omaha are Kenny Rocker, Executive Vice President of Marketing and Sales; Eric Gehringer, Executive Vice President of Operations; and Jennifer Hamann, our Chief Financial Officer. We're also joined by our newly elected Independent Chair of the Board of Directors, Mike McCarthy, who will take a couple of minutes to address the announcements we made this morning regarding my successor and our Board.

Mike, the floor is yours.

Michael McCarthy

Thanks, Lance. This morning, the Board of Directors announced that Jim Vena will be appointed the next Chief Executive Officer of Union Pacific. The Board has also appointed Jim to the Board of Directors. Jim brings a strong rail operations background at Union Pacific with over 40 years of experience. This includes two successful years as our Chief Operating Officer from 2019 to 2020. After a comprehensive search process, it was clear Jim's track record of operating excellence was unparalleled and he was the right candidate for the job. Jim will start as CEO on August 14, and we look forward to welcoming him back to Union Pacific.

The Board also announced that Beth Whited will be appointed President of Union Pacific. Beth has over 35 years of experience at our company and has held leadership roles across multiple departments. Recently, she has led our strategy, sustainability and workforce resource teams with great success.

Going forward, the operations, finance, marketing and sales, supply chain and technology functions will report directly to Vena. Whited will report to Vena, and her responsibilities will include the strategy, workforce resources, sustainability, law, corporate relations and government affairs functions.

In addition to these management changes, the Board is appointing two new Board members: Doyle Simons, former President and Chief Executive Officer of Weyerhaeuser; and John Wiehoff, former Chairman, President and CEO of C.H. Robinson. Both bring to our Board a wealth of skill sets, including operational expertise from leading large industrial public companies.