La-Z-Boy is promoting its CFO, Melinda Whittington, to president and CEO. Whittington, who joined the furniture company in 2018, was previously finance chief for Allscripts Healthcare Solutions. Before that, she was senior vice president, corporate controller, and chief accounting officer for Kraft Foods Group. Earlier in her career, Whittington spent 21 years at Procter and Gamble, where she held several finance leadership roles. Whittington takes over for Kurt Darrow, who is retiring on April 25 after more than 40 years at the company.
Robert Lucian, currently vice president of finance, will succeed Whittington as CFO at La-Z-Boy. Lucian joined La-Z-Boy in 2019 and was previously chief financial officer at beauty company Coty. Before that, Lucian spent 32 years at P&G in positions of increasing responsibility in multiple business units, corporate finance, new business development, and global supply chain finance.
HP appointed Marie Myers as chief financial officer. Myers has been serving as acting CFO and chief transformation officer since October 2020. Myers has more than 20 years of HP financial experience, having served as global controller, Americas CFO of personal systems, and finance lead for the HP businesses during the separation of Hewlett-Packard Company. She also served as the CFO at UiPath, a robotic process automation company.
Marketing company Digital Media Solutions appointed Vasundara Srenivas as finance chief. For more than a decade, Srenivas held executive-level positions at Boeing, supporting both corporate and divisional finance. Her roles at Boeing included CFO of Boeing Australia and Boeing Defense Australia and CFO of Boeing Capital. Srenivas takes over for Randy Koubek, who is leaving the company.
Nicholas Gangestad is joining Rockwell Automation as chief financial officer on March 1. Gangestad was most recently chief financial officer at 3M. Before being promoted to CFO at 3M, he was chief accounting officer, corporate controller, and also held global financial management roles at the company. Gangestad replaces Steve Etzel, who has served as interim CFO since November 2020. Etzel, a 30-year Rockwell veteran, postponed his retirement to fill the interim role. He will retire in 2021 after a transition period.
Wyze Labs named Francis Lee as the smart home startup’s first chief financial officer. Lee, formerly an executive at Nike, was previously CFO of Nike Japan and held several vice president roles leading global finance and strategy functions. Most recently, he was vice president of global marketing finance at Nike. Before that, he was on the corporate strategy and development team at Gap.
Jill Klindt, Workiva’s senior vice president, treasurer, and chief accounting officer, has been named CFO. Klindt, who joined the SaaS company in 2008, was formerly the company’s chief accounting officer. Before that, she held finance and accounting positions at Wells Fargo Financial, CitiMortgage, and Principal Residential Mortgage. She takes over for Stuart Miller, who is retiring.
Fareed Khan is the new chief financial officer at mobile retail tech company Enjoy. Since 2019, Fareed has been CFO and chief operating officer at cannabis company Parallel. He previously held CFO roles at Kellogg’s and US Foods. Earlier in his career, Khan served as division CEO of a multi-billion-dollar revenue operating unit at USG Corporation after 12 years of steady ascent through key operating roles at the company. Early in his career, Khan was a management consultant at McKinsey & Company.
MedeAnalytics hired Julie Peffer as its new finance chief. Peffer joins the healthcare software-as-a-service company from Amazon, where she was vice president of finance supporting Amazon Web Services’ sales, marketing, and customer support. Peffer previously held leadership positions at Flowserve, Raytheon, Lennox International, Textron, and Texas Instruments.
Rolls-Royce has named former Deloitte partner Panos Kakoullis as its new chief financial officer. After joining Deloitte as a partner in 1999, Kakoullis became a managing director in 2015. He left the accountancy giant in 2019 after being passed over for the top job and since then had been working for innovation and strategy consultancy PA Consulting. Kakoullis will succeed Stephen Daintith in May. Daintith, who resigned last year after being poached by online retailer group Ocado, will leave Rolls-Royce on March 19, with Ben Fidler, currently acting deputy CFO, stepping in as interim CFO until Kakoullis arrives.