Fortune Brands flies to Chicago the week of a leadership vacuum and activist board seat

Fortune Brands flew from Seamans Field in Pennsylvania to Chicago Executive Airport on June 15, a 92-minute hop in its Embraer Legacy 500 that lands the company’s leadership back at its Deerfield headquarters.

The same week, Fortune Brands is still sorting out the aftermath of a dramatic leadership shakeup. In March, the company announced that CEO-designate Amit Banati would never actually take the job, walking away with $18.4 million, per an SEC filing and reporting by AOL. Interim CEO David Barry now runs the company while the board, now including activist investor Ed Garden, searches for a permanent chief. Garden joined the board as part of a cooperation agreement after building a stake and criticizing former CEO Nicholas Fink’s tenure, which included a controversial employee relocation mandate that Fink himself abandoned when he left for Constellation Brands, as Fast Company reported.

The flight from Pennsylvania — near the company’s former office footprint — fits a pattern of midweek returns to Chicago. In recent weeks, Fortune Brands has flown to and from Atlanta, Cleveland, and the Knoxville area, suggesting active board and executive travel as the company navigates a CEO search, declining net income, and a newly amended corporate charter that eliminated supermajority voting requirements at the May annual meeting.