- Growing Pains: Merger partners BHP Ltd. and Billiton Plc announced that Billiton’s executive director of finance Mick Davis is resigning to head up Swiss resource company Xstrata AG. Davis, one of the architects of the $28 billion mining merger to create BHP Billiton, was to become BHP Billiton’s chief development officer. According to Dow Jones Newswires, he was a key member of the highly rated Billiton executive team that BHP had talked up as a major selling point of the union. His exit now leaves some investors disappointed and worried about the possibility of further resignations. BHP and Billiton will replace Davis with BHP’s CFO, Chip Goodyear, who will juggle both jobs until a Melbourne- based replacement is found for the merged mineral-resource mining group. Goodyear will then relocate to London from Melbourne.
- Top Pro: PurchasePro.com Inc., a troubled business-to- business software company, named CFO Richard Clemmer to the chief-executive post CEO. PurchasePro’s founder, chairman, and CEO Charles Johnson resigned abruptly two weeks ago after the company was forced to restate its first-quarter earnings, citing revenue-recognition problems. PurchasePro, which has been hit by a series of class-action lawsuits, also failed to file its 10Q financial documents on time. It has since made the filings. Clemmer will continue to serve as CFO until the Las Vegas-based firm finds his successor. Clemmer joined PurchasePro at the end of May from computer data storage company Quantum Corp., where he was EVP and CFO for five years. Before that, he was with Texas Instruments Inc. for more than 20 years, holding several positions, including CFO of the $8 billion semiconductor group.
- A Secure Position: NTRU, a Burlington, Mass.-based provider of security technology for wireless products, announced that Elizabeth Robertson has joined the company as VP of finance and CFO. Most recently, she held the CFO position at Authentica, a security and encryption company.
- A Veteran CFO: Richmond, Calif.-based, QRS Corp., a global sourcing and supply chain management company for the retail industry, appointed Samuel M. Hedgpeth III SVP and CFO. Hedgpeth joined QRS as interim CFO in January.
- Intrinsic Resignation: Intrinsyc Software Inc., a Vancouver, Canada-based networking software company, announced that Rod Campbell has resigned from the company to pursue other opportunities. Intrinsyc said it hopes to hire a replacement for Campbell as soon as possible.