I belive the term often used in these cases are "gardening leave". Hans didn't manage to turn a profit, hence the board took the decision to replace him. Since it would look bad for the board to fire him outright (would be tantamount to admitting they hired the wrong guy) they relocate him to somewhere else for a while.
As for Ken, he does have a rather good track record turning both EEMEA, Canada and Asia around and showing growth and profit. As for why it'll take a month, well, give the bloke some time to get his feet under the table, speak to the key players, devise a plan and have it approved by the board. Doing all that in just one month would be quite remarkable really.
But with Ken in charge of Express and, if rumours are correct, Ferguson in charge of the Aviation side things are looking better than they have in a while.
Will be interesting to see what the "plan" will be, how it will be executed and what the outcome will be. The last two issues will take a while to become clear though, and I hope DPWN will look just a bit longer than the next quarterly ...
