Groupon CFO Jason Child is leaving the online discounts company to take over as finance chief at fitness-tracker maker Jawbone.
During his four years at Groupon, TechCrunch reports, Child led the company through “all kinds of financial and executive changes, including its rollercoaster IPO and subsequent stock tumble, the departure of colorful cofounder and CEO Andrew Mason, the restructuring of its international business, and repositioning the company from its daily deal roots to include local commerce solutions.”
“Jason has done a tremendous job of helping lead Groupon through one of the most explosive periods of growth any company has ever experienced,” CEO Eric Lefkofsky in a statement. “We wish him the very best in his next venture.”
That venture could be equally challenging. Child will be Jawbone’s first CFO, a company spokesman told The Wall Street Journal, adding that David Merenbach, who has led Jawbone’s finance team as principal financial officer, will report to Child.
“Jason not only took [Groupon] public, but drove a 10x increase in sales,” Jawbone CEO Hosain Rahman said in a blog post. Noting that Child spent four years as CFO of Amazon’s international business before joining Groupon, he added, “There are few execs with that kind of operational experience on the planet.”
Child said he was “joining Jawbone at an incredibly exciting time. With funding in place and new products on the market, Jawbone is in a great position to harness its potential and reach many more millions of users across the globe.”
Jawbone recently completed a $300 million funding from investment firm BlackRock that values the company at about $3 billion. But it is facing increasing competition from Apple and others and ran into delays with its Up3 tracker that, according to TechCrunch, “led many to wonder what was going on with the company.”
At Groupon, Child received compensation valued at $6.5 million including a salary of $397,575 in 2014. Groupon said he would remain with the company until the end of July.
“While some might assume that [Child’s] hiring is in anticipation of an eventual IPO of [Jawbone], sources said this event is not contemplated for a while,” Re/code reported.