Sankar Narayan appointed Virgin Blue CFO

Virgin Blue, Australia's second-biggest airline, on Friday announced the appointment of former Fairfax Media and Foxtel executive Sankar Narayan as its chief financial officer.

Virgin chief executive John Borghetti announced the appointment of the Indian expatriate following an international search process conducted by global executive search firm Heidrick & Struggles.

Narayan replaces former Virgin chief financial officer Keith Neate, who resigned on 21 December.

"We are thrilled to have Sankar join us," Borghetti said on Friday. "He comes with the highest of recommendations in the corporate community. He brings a global view from his work overseas and has information technology experience too, which is important."

In September, Virgin's IT system went into meltdown when a backup system failed because of hardware problems.

Borghetti said Narayan would lead Virgin's financial, information technology and centralised procurement divisions, be responsible for improving financial efficiency and play a key role in driving the group's growth.