Dive Brief:
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Defense contractor Raytheon Technologies CFO Anthony O’Brien abruptly stepped down Friday, just one year after the company’s merger with United Technologies Company.
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Raytheon’s VP of FP&A, Neil Mitchill, replaced O’Brien on April 7. Mitchell had previously served as CFO of Pratt & Whitney, the company’s jet-engine business, and prior to the merger, he worked in finance leadership at UTC, in roles including VP global financial services and controller.
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O'Brien had been with Raytheon for 34 years. “[O’Brien] has played a pivotal role in the establishment and integration of Raytheon Technologies,” CEO Greg Hayes said in a statement. “We thank him for his many contributions and wish him well in the future.”
Dive Insight:
O’Brien, who has been Raytheon’s CFO since 2015, will be “eligible to receive certain separation payments and accelerated vesting of equity awards granted prior to the closing of the merger,” Raytheon shared in an 8-K filing.
Since the closure of the UTC merger, the pandemic has resulted in “plunging demand” for the Waltham, Mass.-based company’s commercial aerospace business, Bloomberg wrote.
In October 2020, Raytheon, which counts the U.S. Department of Defense as its primary client for missiles and other “air-launched munitions,” disclosed a probe by the Department of Justice into its accounting records spanning the decade; it was cooperating with the investigation, it said.
“Neil is a proven leader who successfully guided our Finance team through the merger,” Hayes said in a statement. “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.”
Mitchill was named as acting senior vice president and CFO of United Technologies Corporation in 2019, a role he served until the Raytheon merger was complete.
While Mitchill was in the role, UTC spun out elevator maker Otis Worldwide and air-conditioning giant Carrier Global, before merging its remaining operations with Raytheon.
He then was appointed corporate vice president of FP&A and investor relations of the newly-formed Raytheon Technologies.
Prior to joining UTC, Mitchill was a partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, where he was the Hartford Products & Services Assurance Leader, providing assurance and business advisory services for global, industrial products companies.