IDT Corp.’s CFO is leaving that role to become chief operating officer. His replacement as finance chief? It’s the COO.
Stephen Brown, who was head of operations only since October, is switching roles with Marc Oppenheimer, who will now focus on the telecom company’s expanding activities in the energy area.
For Brown, it’s a return to the familiar. He joined the company as CFO in 1995 and served in that position until May 2006 and again from March through August 2007, when Oppenheimer took the post.
Oppenheimer served as lead independent director on IDT’s board of directors and the audit committee’s financial expert from December 2006 through last August.
“From time to time, we tap Steve Brown’s talents to guide the development of new ventures, but at the end of the day, we always seem to want him back as our CFO,” said Howard Jonas, IDT’s chairman and founder. “Marc Oppenheimer will bring his strategic expertise to the COO post.”
It’s not very unusual for two top executives at a company to swap roles.
Perhaps the most high-profile example of such a swap played out in 1992, when David Glass, the vice chairman and CFO of Wal-Mart, exchanged roles with president and COO Jack Shewmaker. Glass went on to become the company’s CEO. Today he is the owner and CEO of the Kansas City Royals baseball team.