Raytheon Technologies has appointed former United Technologies executive Neil Mitchill to succeed Anthony “Toby” O’Brien as CFO a year after the two companies merged to create an aerospace and defense behemoth.
Raytheon said Mitchill’s appointment was effective April 7 and O’Brien, who had served as CFO since March 2015, “stepped down as chief financial officer and separated from employment with the company.”
Neil Mitchill
Mitchill, 46, was named as acting senior vice president and CFO of United Technologies in November 2019, serving in that role until the merger with Raytheon, when he was appointed corporate vice president, financial planning & analysis and investor relations of Raytheon Technologies.
“Neil is a proven leader who successfully guided our finance team through the merger,” Raytheon CEO Greg Hayes said in a news release. “He has been instrumental in overseeing our capital allocation strategy, which enabled us to exceed our cash savings target as well as our merger-related synergy expectations for 2020.”
Like other aerospace contractors, Raytheon has hit a downturn amid the collapse in airline demand for new jets due to the coronavirus pandemic. It has laid off about a fifth of its commercial workforce.
“The fact is we don’t think you’re going to see return to normalcy until probably mid-2023 at the earliest,” Hayes told investors recently.
Raytheon shares rose 1.05% to $78.29 in trading Friday after it announced the CFO change and that it was likely to report first-quarter results above guidance.
Mitchill was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers for 17 years before he joined United Technologies in 2014 as vice president, global financial services. He was named CFO of the company’s Pratt and Whitney division in September 2016.
O’Brien will be “eligible to receive certain separation payments and accelerated vesting of equity awards granted prior to the closing of the merger,” Raytheon said in a regulatory filing. He earned more than $3.7 million in salary and other compensation in 2020 while Mitchill earned $3 million.
In October 2020, Raytheon disclosed that the U.S. Department of Justice was investigating its accounting records going back to 2009.
