• McDonald’s has promoted Peter Bensen from corporate controller to CFO, effective January 1. The 11-year company veteran will succeed Matthew Paull, who announced this summer that he would retire to teach undergraduates at a San Diego university. Paull had been with the fast-food chain for 14 years, six of them as CFO. Bensen, who began his career at the Chicago office of Ernst & Young, joined McDonald’s as staff director in its financial reporting group.
• GMAC Financial Services has named a Bank of America executive as its new CFO. Robert Hull, who has worked at BofA for the past six years, will leave his job as CFO of the bank’s global wealth and investment management and principal investing divisions. He will report to GMAC chief operating officer Al de Molina, who left the CFO job at BofA last year. Hull previously was CFO of Investorforce Holdings, Marvel Enterprises, and Wise Foods Holdings. At GMAC, he replaces Sanjiv Khattri, who has been moved to a new position as executive vice president of corporate development and strategy, effective December 3. Khattri will be responsible for strategic planning and business development in addition to his role as CFO of GMAC Residential Capital LLC.
• John Harvey, JetBlue ‘s executive vice president of corporate services and CFO, has resigned to pursue other professional interests. He has been replaced by interim CFO Ed Barnes, who is also the airline’s senior vice president of finance and principal accounting officer. Barnes has been with JetBlue since 2006. He has also worked at Southwest Airlines Co. and America West Airlines.
A former Visa CFO, R. Neil Williams will now oversee the finances at Intuit.
• The company behind TurboTax has hired the former CFO of Visa U.S.A. as its new finance chief. R. Neil Williams will join Intuit, a software company, in January. He replaces Kiran Patel, who became general manager and senior vice president for the company’s consumer tax business in June. Patel had been the CFO of Intuit for nearly two years.
• Orient-Express Hotels has named Martin O’Grady CFO, effective February 18. He will leave his CFO job at Orion Capital Managers after a year there. He has also served as finance chief for Access, a self-storage business, and was vice president of finance for Security Capital European Realty. He began his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers.
• Eddie Bauer Holdings has hired Marv Toland as senior vice president and CFO. He previously was the CFO of another retailer, London Fog Group. He has also been the CFO of Brooks Sports Inc. and once held a variety of positions at Exxon Corp. Eddie Bauer expects Toland to play a “key role” in its various cost reduction initiatives during the next year.
• Luke Beshar will join NPS Pharmaceuticals as senior vice president and CFO just before Thanksgiving. He replaces Gerard Michel, who is leaving the company on November 19 to pursue new professional opportunities. Michel will serve as a consultant during the transition if needed. Most recently, Beshar served as executive vice president and chief financial officer of Cambrex Corp. He has also been the CFO for Dendrite International. He began his career with Arthur Andersen.
• Robert V. Johnson has retired as CFO of FCStone Group Inc., effective January 10. He will stay on as an adviser for at least two years. In his place, William Dunaway will step up from treasurer to finance chief. He has been with the commodity risk management company for seven years. He has also been the CFO for Saul Stone and Co. Johnson spent the past four years transitioning FCStone from a cooperative, to a private registrant of the Securities and Exchange Commission, to a publicly traded company. He has been with the company for 20 years.
• Mentor Corp. has named Michael O’Neill vice president and CFO. He joins the medical-product supplier from Johnson & Johnson, where he has worked for the past 20 years, most recently as vice president of finance in the IT office. He spent six years as CFO of J&J’s Lifescan business.
• Don Marsh, the former CFO of Commonwealth Industries, has landed a permanent position at Castle Brands Inc. as president and chief operating officer. He had been helping the spirits marketer as a consultant in management and finance-related matters. Marsh’s predecessor, Keith Bellinger, has resigned but is staying on Castle’s board. Marsh began his career at Chemical Bank, where he served as executive vice president. To take over the company’s finance supervision is Alfred Small, who has been the company’s controller since March. He has been named CFO after three years with Castle. He has also worked at Grodsky Caporrino & Kaufman as a senior accountant.
• Expeditors International of Washington has promoted its CFO to president and chief operating officer. R. Jordan Gates will take over the COO job on January 1 but will retain his CFO responsibilities until his replacement is announced. Gates joined the logistics company as its European controller and was appointed CFO and treasurer in 1998.
• Health Net Inc. has named its interim CFO for the past year as its new chief operating officer. Stephen Woys will be the company’s first COO since 1998. He relinquished his role as interim CFO on November 1. He has been president of the company’s government and specialty services division since 2005.
• Resources Global Professionals has appointed Nate Franke as executive vice president and CFO, effective November 26. He joins the professional services firm from Deloitte & Touche, where he has worked for 22 years, the last 12 of which as an audit partner. He succeeds Anthony Cherbak, executive vice president and chief operating officer, who has served as acting CFO since September, following the departure of Stephen Giusto. Giusto now works at Korn/Ferry International as CFO.