Dive Brief:
- The New York Times Company announced Monday that CFO Roland Caputo will retire in the brand new 12 months, in accordance to a press launch.
- The present finance chief and govt vice chairman will proceed to carry out his CFO duties till a successor is recognized. No precise date was given for his official retirement and the corporate has retained an govt search agency to fill Caputo’s sneakers, the discharge stated.
- Caputo’s retirement announcement occurs in opposition to the backdrop of greater than 1,000 journalists and other employees of the corporate strolling off the job for twenty-four hours on Dec. 8 in one of many largest labor disputes for the newspaper in greater than 40 years, publications together with the The Washington Post, CNN and the Associated Press reported.
Dive Insight:
During the strike, reporters, editors, photographers and different workers picketed exterior of the workplace in Manhattan’s Times Square. As a consequence, the corporate had to depend on worldwide and non-union staffers to ship content material to its 9 million subscribers internationally, in accordance to the Associated Press.
The firm announced on Nov. 2 a rise in revenue of $51 million in the third quarter from $49 million in the identical interval of 2021, citing larger digital subscription revenues.
Despite macroeconomic headwinds all through the fiscal 12 months, CEO Meredith Kopit Levien stated that their “third-quarter results, including the 180,000 net digital-only subscriber additions, support our confidence in our strategy, and reinforce our conviction in the long-term opportunity for The New York Times Company,” in accordance to the earnings launch.
However, Levien additionally stated in a company-wide e mail that income are nonetheless not what they had been a decade in the past, the New York Times reported.
Caputo’s retirement announcement additionally occurs in opposition to the backdrop of a number of indicators that CFO turnover is on the rise, with retirement rates having elevated for the primary time in three years, in accordance to an October Russell Reynolds report.
CFO turnover is probably going to rise with market volatility, main to elevated scrutiny of these in the new seat and an getting old inhabitants of these in the position, regardless of turnover at S&P 500 corporations ticking down to 14% for the primary three quarters of 2022 — a decline from the 16% reported throughout that very same time final 12 months, in accordance to the report.
The New York Times joins an inventory of corporations who’ve gone by — or who’ve introduced they’re planning to undergo — some type of CFO turnover in latest weeks. American Airlines, Jack in the Box, IHG (proprietor of lodge chain Holiday Inn), Newell Brands, packaged meals firm Del Monte and Krispy Kreme, amongst others, have swiped CFOs from different organizations or promoted one in every of their very own executives to tackle the position.
Caputo — who began on the New York-based digital news subscription enterprise as a monetary analyst in 1986 — has served in a wide range of operational, monetary and strategic roles throughout his 36-year tenure on the group. In explicit, he was instrumental in making the New York Times a nationwide newspaper and in 2008 he helped shepherd the core print enterprise from a deep recession, the discharge stated.
