• Enron Corp.’s Raymond Brown resigned as chief financial officer to pursue other job opportunities. Robert Bingham, who will step in as interim CFO and interim treasurer, has since 1999 been an employee of Kroll Zolfo Cooper, a consulting and crisis management firm led by Enron’s interim chief executive officer, Steven Cooper. Bingham will remain as CFO through the completion of Enron’s reorganization plan, which is scheduled to begin later this year and be finalized around 2006.
• Los Angeles-based defense giant Northrop Grumman Corp. announced the appointment of Linda M. Leukhardt as chief financial officer and vice president of business management for Northrop’s electronic systems sector. Leukhardt most recently served as finance chief and vice president of business management for the company’s Newport News sector in Virginia. She succeeds Wylie B. Smith, who has been planning to retire at year’s end after 36 years with the company.
• Entergy Corp.’s chief financial officer Leo Denault named new finance executives to his team at the New Orleans-based power and gas distributor.
Anthony Duenner was named vice president of corporate development, Barrett Green was named vice president of commercial analytics, and Michele Lopiccolo was named vice president of investor relations, replacing Nancy Morovich, who is now vice president of planning and financial communications. Lopiccolo will report to Morovich; the others will report to Denault.
• Willi Berchtold, a member of the supervisory board of German automotive supplier ZF Friedrichshafen AG, has been named chief financial officer. Paul Ballmeier, currently CFO and executive vice president for finance and IT, will retire in 2005. Since 1998, Berchtold has also been chairman of the management board of Munich-based Giesecke & Devrient GmbH, a specialist in “safe exchange” technology including smart cards and electronic payments.
• MedCath Corp.’s chief accounting officer David Perry was promoted to chief financial officer of the company’s hospital division. He succeeds Doug Davenport, who left MedCath to pursue other interests. Gary Bryant, who will fill Perry’s shoes as principal accounting officer, joined MedCath just last month as vice president and controller. MedCath owns and operates 13 hospitals around the country and provides cardiovascular-care services in diagnostic and therapeutic facilities.
• R. Lloyd Tyler has been named chief financial officer for the city of Vancouver, beginning in January. He succeeds Paul Lewis, who left city government in August to spend more time with his family and to pursue other career opportunities. For the past seven years, Tyler has been finance chief of the North American Development Bank in San Antonio, an international institution established to finance environmental infrastructure on both sides of the United States-Mexico border.
• Air Wisconsin Airlines Corp., the largest privately held regional airline in the United States, tapped Christine Deister as executive vice president and chief financial officer. Deister began her career with Trans World Airlines in London in the 1970s and rose to senior vice president and treasurer; she joins Air Wisconsin from Hawaiian Airlines Inc.
• Dutch food and nutrition group Wessanen appointed Doede Vierstra to the position of chief financial officer effective January 1. Since 2000 he has been CFO and a member of the management board of dairy products firm Koninklijke Friesland Foods. Vierstra succeeds Koos Kramer, who will leave Wessanen after more than 11 years with the company.
• Zonare Medical Systems Inc. named Kevin R. Davidge as vice president and chief financial officer and appointed Robert Terranova vice president of operations. Previously, Davidge served as CFO of three other medical-device and biomedical companies: R2 Technology, ViroLogic, and Athena Neurosciences. Mountain View, California-based Zonare designs, develops, and manufactures high-performance ultrasound solutions.
• Chelmsford, Massachusetts-based Sycamore Networks, a maker of optical-networking gear, has named Richard Gaynor chief financial officer. He succeeds Frances Jewels, who will remain with the company as an advisor. Gaynor most recently held the title of vice president, corporate controller, and principal accounting officer of Manufacturers Services Ltd..
• Charles P. Hadeed has been appointed vice president of finance and chief financial officer, and named to the new position of chief operating officer, by Rochester, New York-based Transcat Inc. which specializes in test, measurement, and calibration instruments and services. Previously Hadeed was a vice president at Henry Schein Inc. and group vice president of operations at Del Laboratories Inc.
• Arden Group Inc., the parent of upscale grocery chain Gelson’s Markets, hired Debra L. Jensen as chief financial officer. Jensen joins the company from Wild Oats Markets Inc., where she served as national operations controller from 2001 to August 2004. Jensen also worked as a regional controller of Whole Foods Market California Inc. from 1997 to 2001.
• Jorge Raul Forgues has joined iDirect Technologies, a Herndon, Virginia-based broadband company, as senior vice president and chief financial officer. Since 2001 he had served as CFO of Internet service provider Inter.Net Corp.