The Afterpay Ltd (ASX: APT) share price is down 6% at the time of writing after announcing the departure of its CFO.
Afterpay’s leadership departure
Afterpay announced that its chief financial officer (CFO) Luke Bortoli will cease in the role and Rebecca Lowde will assume the role on 6 October 2020.
Mr Bortoli has been the CFO of Afterpay for almost three years and he has played a critical role in delivering the significant growth and success of the business over that period, according to Afterpay.
Afterpay said he has transformed the finance function as the company grew from a small cap start up to becoming a global business.
The buy now, pay later business said it had discussions with Mr Bortoli about his future ambitions. He has ceased to be a ‘key management personnel’ immediately.
New CFO
Replacing him as the CFO is Rebecca Lowde. She has been the CEO of Salmat Ltd (ASX: SLM) for three years and was also the CFO for another three years. She has also been an executive director and CFO of Bravura Solutions Ltd (ASX: BVS).
Mr Bortoli will remain employed to assist with the transition of responsibilities, particularly for the lead up to Afterpay’s FY21 half year result.
Beyond that, he will be available to assist the business as required until his departure at the end of FY21.
Management comments
Afterpay CEO and Managing Director Anthony Eisen said: “Luke has made a transformational contribution to Afterpay in highly crucial years. He has built a world class finance function that has grown from a small number of employees based in Australia to a high performing team operating across multiple regions and functions.
“Luke has worked tirelessly as a partner to the executive leadership team and been integral in driving our strong performance trajectory and expansion into new regions, while ensuring we had the right capital structure and investor base to achieve our strategic objectives.”
Other appointments
Afterpay also announced that it has appointed Meahan Callaghan as Chief People Officer, the new role will be in charge of HR.
Mark Teperson has joined as the chief strategy officer to focus on developing the consumer and merchant data insights to enhance its customer and merchant value proposition.
Summary
It can be concerning to investors to see a CFO leave. There wasn’t much mention of why the change was happening. So only time will tell if there is anything to be concerned about. Leadership changes do happen from to time.
Even after today’s decline, I’m not interested in buying Afterpay shares. There are other ASX growth shares I would rather buy like Pushpay Holdings Ltd (ASX: PPH).
