Redbox’s CFO Kavita Suthar is stepping down as finance chief. Suthar, who became CFO in 2020, joined the company in 2015 and played a key role in the entertainment company's special purpose acquisition company merger and public listing in 2021. Before being named CFO, Suthar held several finance positions at Redbox, including vice president of finance, strategy, and analytics and senior director of FP&A. Mitchell Cohen will take over as interim CFO as Suthar moves into an advisory role to help with the transition. Cohen was previously chief financial officer at Bolt Mobility and Athenian Venture Partners.
ByteDance, the Chinese owner of social media platform TikTok, appointed Julie Gao as its new chief financial officer. Gao is a Hong-Kong based capital markets lawyer at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom. Gao has advised on IPOs and capital market transactions of more than 100 companies, including JD.com and Meituan. The company’s CFO role has been vacant since last November when former CFO Shou Zi Chew took over as TikTok’s CEO.
Due to a management shakeup, Credit Suisse Group CFO David Mathers will be leaving the Swiss bank. Mathers, who joined the bank in 1998 and had been chief financial officer since 2010, will stay in his current position until his successor is found. Other moves include Asia-Pacific head Helman Sitohang stepping down in June and Francesca McDonagh taking over as CEO of EMEA in October.
Fitch Group named Tracey Perini as the rating and data provider’s new CFO. Perini joins the company after working at Goldman Sachs for 22 years, where she held a variety of leadership roles including head of FP&A transformation and chief operating officer of FP&A, CFO of operations, and chief of staff to the chief administrative officer. Perini replaces Ted Niedermayer, who was appointed president of Fitch Solutions.
Suzanne van Staveren is the new CFO at Edelman Financial Engines. Van Staveren joins the investment advisory company from Goldman Sachs, where she was most recently chief financial officer of the firm’s personal financial management group. Previously, she was chief operating officer of the Americas institutional business within Goldman Sachs Asset Management. Before joining Goldman Sachs, van Staveren worked at Fidelity Investments and AXA.
E2open tapped Marje Armstrong as its next finance chief. Armstrong joins the software company from Dropbox, where she was vice president of finance. Previously she was head of investor relations, FP&A, corporate development, and commercial finance at Afiniti. Before that, she spent five years at Morgan Stanley and 10 years at Goldman Sachs across investment banking, equity capital markets, equity research, equity sales, and equity trading divisions. Armstrong takes over for Jarett Janik, who is retiring.
Jagtar Narula has been appointed chief financial officer of WEX. Narula joins the global commerce platform from 3D Systems, where he is currently CFO. Before that, he oversaw corporate strategy and business development for Blackbaud, a cloud software and payment solutions provider. Additionally, Narula held several finance leadership roles at Xerox, including financial planning, acquisition operations, and strategy. Earlier, he spent nearly ten years in investment banking and private equity after beginning his professional career as an engineer.
John Griffith was named CFO of American Water. Griffith most recently was a managing director in Bank of America Securities’ mergers and acquisitions group. Before joining Bank of America in 2014, he was CEO of HighWave Energy, a start-up renewable fuels company. Griffith also held multiple positions during a 14-year career with Merrill Lynch, culminating as managing director. Griffith replaces Susan Hardwick, who has been the company’s CFO since 2019 and was named American Water’s president and CEO.
Lower named Gautam Kumar as the fintech’s first CFO. Kumar started in venture capital before spending almost a decade at McKinsey & Co. Before joining Lower, a home mortgage fintech, Kumar was CFO of Rocket Travel, which was acquired by Bookings Holdings, and senior vice president of strategy and business development at OptionsHouse, acquired by ETrade.
Gaming operator Accel Entertainment promoted Mathew Ellis to finance chief. Ellis was most recently senior vice president of corporate strategy at Accel. He played a key role in the recent acquisitions of Century Gaming and Tom’s Amusement, where he was responsible for structuring and negotiating transaction terms and financing. Before Accel, Ellis was vice president of FP&A for Transworld Systems. He began his career as a senior auditor for Deloitte. Ellis replaces Brian Carroll, who is retiring.
Breach and attack simulation company SafeBreach hired Mor Lakritz as chief financial officer. She most recently served as vice president of finance at cybersecurity company Exabeam. Before that, she was vice president, corporate controller at Talkdesk. Lakritz has nearly 20 years of professional finance leadership and accounting experience and started her career as an audit manager at KPMG.
Annie Pham was named chief financial officer of identity verification solution provider authID.ai. Pham most recently worked at SonicWall, where she has been vice president and chief accounting officer since 2017. Previous roles include vice president of finance at Applied Micro Circuits and director, assistant corporate controller at Broadcom. Pham replaces Stuart Stoller, who is retiring.