- Keeping An Eye on the Things: Focal Communications Corp., a broadband communications provider, named Ronald Reising to the position of CFO. He will be responsible for overseeing the finance, treasury, and accounting functions of the company, and will report to Robert Taylor, Focal’s president and CEO. Before joining Focal, Reising was CFO of Bell Canada following Ameritech’s $3 billion investment in the company. He replaces Joseph Beatty, co-founder and CFO of Focal for the last five years. Beatty announced his intention to retire late last year.
- Gone With the Wind: Ventro Corp., one of the earliest entrants in the business-to-business E-commerce sector, announced that three of its top execs are stepping down. The same day the company posted no revenues for its most recent quarter. Chief Operating Officer Robin Abrams, CFO James Stewart and marketing VP Martha Greer will all vacate their posts by the end of March. The executives did not immediately return a call to comment, but CEO David Perry suggested in a conference call with analysts that the company is looking for executives with deeper backgrounds in software and technology. Ventro is trying to transition itself from a company that helps operate Internet marketplaces to a provider of the software that makes those exchanges run.
- Good Decision: DecisionOne, a provider of multi-vendor computer support services, announced that Paul H. Snyder has joined the company as its new CFO and SVP. Snyder brings more than 25 years of financial experience to his new post, where he will oversee treasury, accounting and financial planning. He comes to DecisionOne from Salient 3 Communications, where he was SVP, CFO, and a member of the Board of Directors. Prior to that, Snyder served as VP and CFO for The Dreyfus Corp.
- A Chilly Departure: The Arctic Group, a packaged ice company, announced that CFO William Robertson will step down at the end of April to pursue other opportunities. Robertson will remain in his position of CFO throughout the company’s year-end audit currently underway. Robertson’s replacement will be announced as soon as final arrangements have been completed.
- High Speed Haislip: Somerset, N.J.-based Elity Systems, a developer of high-speed decision triggering software, named Bruce D. Haislip to the CFO position, where he will be responsible for all of Elity’s finance and operations functions. Haislip was most recently CFO and founder of Princeton Softech, where he directed financial planning, mergers and acquisitions. Haislip has also been active with the New Jersey Technology Council and currently serves as Co-Chair of the CFO Peer Network.
- No Longer the Milk Man: Xeikon N.V., the world’s leading supplier of production digital printing systems based in Belgium, announced the appointment of Gerrit Keyaerts as CFO. Keyaerts was most recently the VP of finance for the Dairy Products Division Worldwide, the largest revenue and profit contributor of Paris- based Danone Group. Keyaerts will assume his new function effective April 1, 2001. He replaces Frederic Convent, who has left the company to pursue other business interests.