Former Fairfax Media executive Sankar Narayan has been appointed as Virgin Blue Holdings Ltd's (ASX:VBA) new chief financial officer.

He succeeds Keith Neate, who will leave Australia's number two airline on March 31, after seven years in the role.

Narayan was chief financial officer at Fairfax for five years before leaving in May 2009. He holds an MBA from the Booth School of Business in Chicago and is a Certified Practising Accountant (Australia). He also has a Masters in Electrical Engineering from the State University of New York.

Most recently, he was chief financial officer at media company Astro All Asia Networks.

Virgin Blue chief executive John Borghetti welcomed Sankar to the company's executive team.

Narayan's "extensive financial, information technology, investor relations and strategy expertise will be of tremendous value to the Group," he said.

"Sankar will lead our financial, information technology and centralised procurement divisions, be responsible for improving financial efficiency and play a key role in driving the group's growth,"

Narayan will start with the company in April this year.