Former Amgen chief financial officer Richard Nanula didn’t give Boeing a chance to reject his resignation from the board when it was submitted on Friday, one month after he resigned as executive vice president and CFO of the biotech firm.
A Boeing spokesman said that Nanula submitted “a letter of resignation, not an offer to resign,” and thus no board decision on his letter was needed from the aerospace company. Boeing’s policy, said the spokesman, asks directors to offer to resign if “your professional status changes from the time you first became a board member.” That would leave the board in the position of accepting or rejecting the offer.
Nanula was named to the Boeing board in January 2005. Following his resignation, Boeing has 10 directors; the spokesman said the board had not yet decided about a replacement.
An email to Nanula from CFO.com, asking why he resigned from Boeing in that manner, was not immediately answered.
In April, Amgen announced that Nanula had resigned from the company “to pursue other opportunities” but would stay on for 90 days to assist in the transition to new CFO Robert Bradway. The company later announced that it would reduce expenses and update its revenue forecast because of the possibility that sales of two anemia drugs, Aranesp and Epogen, could decline, based on studies showing that in high doses they increased the risk of death.
Amgen’s CFO since August 2001, Nanula previously had been CEO of Broadband Sports, and before that president and COO of Starwood Hotels and Resorts Worldwide. From 1986 to 1998 he was at Walt Disney Co., where he held a number of positions, including CFO.