As UPS CFO Brian Newman Departs, Finance Veteran CEO Steps Up
UPS (no. 37 on the Fortune 500) announced on Monday that Brian Newman, CFO since 2019, will leave the company on June 1, for medical reasons.
“I am honored to have served as CFO of such a storied company with so many great leaders around the world,” Newman said in a statement. “I am confident in the company’s continued success and growth trajectory. My near-term priority is to focus on my health.”
CEO Comments on CFO Departure
Before joining UPS, Newman spent 26 years with PepsiCo serving in finance leadership roles such as EVP for PepsiCo’s Global Operations, and launching initiatives like PepsiCo’s global e-commerce business. Newman, a dual citizen of the U.S. and Ireland, began his career as an investment banker working for PaineWebber in New York City.
UPS CEO Carol Tomé said in a statement that Newman has been “a great partner” and helped to guide the company through unprecedented economic conditions. She added that Newman has left the company “well-positioned” as UPS continues to implement its “1+2 strategy,” focusing on sales and profit growth and increasing operating margins.
CEO’s Finance Background Could Be Key to a Smooth Transition
During her tenure as CFO at Home Depot, Tomé is credited with helping to deliver a 450% increase in the company’s shareholder value, and guiding the company through the 2008 recession. “I learned that the answer to really all of the strategic questions facing a company can be found by listening,” Tomé told Fortune in 2020. “In my free time, in the evenings, on the weekends, I would put on an apron and work in [Home Depot] stores.”
Tomé’ will seemingly play a major role in the UPS search for a new CFO. “Having former CFOs on the board is a huge asset whether or not a company needs a new CFO,” Shawn Cole, president and founding partner of Cowen Partners, a C-suite-focused executive search firm, told me.
But there’s also a potential drawback. “Former CFOs have a habit of emulating themselves,” Cole said. That could be counterproductive if it doesn’t fit the CFO candidate profile the company requires, he said. Having an open mind is key, Cole said.
UPS has ambitious financial goals in a turbulent economy, and a highly competitive space, Cole said. In his assessment, the CFO must have “an ambitious personality, be a strong leader, and management, including the CEO, needs to be comfortable with said profile,” he said.
Bringing in a finance chief of another Fortune 50 distributed service business, with a large unionized workforce, who has a strong finance background including financial planning and analysis is “the direction I would go,” Cole added.
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