• American Express has tapped Daniel Henry as CFO after serving nearly a year as the acting finance chief. He took on the temporary title after Citigroup hired his predecessor, Gary Crittenden, as its new CFO. Henry will be responsible for leading the company’s finance organization and representing American Express to investors, lenders, and rating agencies. He is also a member of the financial services company’s operating committee. Previously, Henry was executive vice president and CFO of the company’s U.S. Consumer, Small Business and Merchant Services Group. He joined American Express in 1990 as comptroller. He has also worked at Ernst & Young.
• Sprint Nextel CFO Paul Saleh will take over as acting CEO following the departure of chairman, president, and chief executive Gary Forsee. The company said the search for a new CEO will focus on external candidates. Saleh has served as CFO since the merger of Sprint and Nextel. Before that he had been executive vice president and CFO for Nextel. From 1997 to 2001, he was senior vice president and CFO at Walt Disney International, and also served as senior vice president and treasurer for The Walt Disney Co. In addition, he was once treasurer of Honeywell, where he spent 12 years in various leadership positions in finance, treasury, investor relations, strategic planning, and operations.
• JoAnn Reed will retire as senior vice president and CFO of Medco Health Solutions next March after 20 years with the company, the last 16 of which as the finance chief. She will serve in an advisory capacity through 2010. Fourteen-year Medco veteran Richard Rubino, currently the senior vice president, controller, and chief accounting officer, will take Reed’s place. He previously worked at IBM and PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• United Heritage Corp. has terminated its CFO, Kenneth Levy, and CEO, C. Scott Wilson. The shake-up also involved Wilson and Levy leaving the board of directors, along with two other directors. In their place, Joseph Langston will serve as interim CEO, president, and chairman, and he has been appointed CFO and treasurer. For the past 12 years, he has been chief executive of Langston Investments Inc. Earlier this year, United Heritage officials announced the exploration company has an uncertain future following a bankruptcy filing by one of its big shareholders, Lothian Oil. Blackstone Ventures has recently acquired a majority stake in the company.
• Orchid Cellmark has appointed James Smith as vice president and CFO. Before joining the DNA testing services company, Smith was executive vice president and CFO of Aphton Corp. He has also worked at Ansell Ltd. as vice president and global controller, and at Wyeth and American Cyanamid Co. in senior finance and accounting positions. He started his finance career with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Advanced Medical Optics has hired Michael Lambert as CFO. Most recently, he was senior vice president and CFO of Quest Software, which is currently searching for his replacement. He has also worked at Quantum Corp. and Nervewire Inc. as their CFO. In addition, he held the CFO title in Lucent Technologies’ internetworking systems division. Randy Meier, who has been holding both titles of CFO and chief operating officer for Advanced Medical, will now be solely the COO. He has also taken on the additional responsibility of managing the company’s cataract and implant business and global customer services function.
• Michael Winiarski has resigned as CFO of Hanmi Financial Corp., the holding company of Hanmi Bank. He has taken a similar position with a privately held bank. Winiarski had been with Hanmi since 2003.
• Health Net Inc. has appointed Joseph Capezza as executive vice president and CFO, effective November 1. James Woys, president of government and specialty services, will continue to act as interim finance chief until Capezza joins the company. Capezza previously served as CFO at Harvard Pilgrim Health Care. He also was once CFO of Group Health Inc., Reliance Reinsurance Corp., and Willcox Inc. Reinsurance Intermediaries. In addition, he was the controller for Skandia America Reinsurance Company in the 1980s. Before that, he served as general practice manger for Coopers & Lybrand.
• John Hamilton is retiring as CFO of Depomed Inc. after 11 years with the pharmaceutical company. He will serve as a consultant during the transition to the next CFO. In the meantime, controller Tammy Cameron will serve as the company’s principal accounting and financial officer on an interim basis. She joined Depomed earlier this year after leaving the controller position at Adeza Biomedical Corp.
• Silicon Image Inc. has named Hal Covert CFO. He replaces Robert Freeman, who had filled the CFO spot for the past two years and recently announced his intention to retire. Covert joins the semiconductor company from Openwave Systems Inc., which he left in August for personal reasons. He had been with the company since 2005 and served on its board and audit committee. He has also served as CFO of Adobe Systems Inc., Silicon Graphics, Extreme Networks Inc., and Fortinet Inc. Earlier in his career, he held financial management positions with Northern Telecom Inc., ISC Systems Corp., and Brush Wellman Inc.
• Unifi Inc. has hired Ronald Smith as CFO to replace William Lowe Jr., who has left the materials processor. Smith was named vice president of finance and treasurer last week. He joined the company in 1994, and has held the positions of controller, chief accounting officer, and director of business development and corporate strategy. Prior to joining Unifi, Mr. Smith was with Ernst & Young.
• Jackson Hewitt Tax Service Inc. has promoted CFO Mark Heimbouch to senior executive vice president and chief operating officer. He will continue to oversee the finance and accounting functions and investor relations as interim CFO until a new CFO is named. His job change comes as his COO predecessor, Michael Yerington, was promoted to chief executive. Heimbouch joined Jackson Hewitt in 2003. He previously served as CFO for two venture capital-funded technology companies and held several corporate finance and planning positions with First Data Corp. and Western Union International. He also spent seven years at Deloitte & Touche.