Record number of management changes in October

Since it’s a slow news day today on the CIO announcements front, I’m going to share Liberum Research’s latest data on management changes that occurred in October, which appeared in my inbox yesterday. 

But before I present the stats, I have an update on yesterday’s posting. I have confirmed that Mike Altendorf no longer works for Ace Hardware.  According to a company spokesperson, he left Ace in June.  I do not know why he left, but apparently, Ace was no longer the place for him (I couldn’t help myself with that one.)  Mike, if you’re out there, please get in touch with us at CIO.   You’re a smart guy, and we’d like to stay in touch with you.

And now for the stats…

Liberum tracked a grand total of 2,059 changes in management from directors and CXOs through EVPs, SVPs and VPs at publicly traded companies.  That’s up 32 percent from 1,568 in September.  Hirings, firings, promotions, retirements, resignations, and lateral moves constitute the kinds of management changes that Liberum watches.

Of those 2,059 management changes, a mere 13 were chief information officers, compared with 10 in September.  Those CIOs changes included

• Michael Crowley, who joined C&D Technologies
• Max Rayner, who was hired at SurfControl
• Trent Taylor, who was promoted at Walgreens  
• Karen Alber, who joined Heinz
• John Hinshaw, who was promoted at Verizon Wireless
• Steven Brigham, who left Timberland
• Virginia McDowell, who joined Trump Entertainment Resorts
• Ricardo Coro, who was hired at Advance Auto Parts
• Judy Spitz (a Ones to Watch honoree), was promoted at Verizon’s network systems unit.
• Daniel Mayleben, who joined Apogee Enterprises
• Steve Matt, who was hired by eStrategy Solution
• Ron Ponder, who’s leaving WellPoint at the end of ’05.
• Mark Boxer, who’s succeeding Ponder at WellPoint

(I got all those names on this blog last month except Judy Spitz.)

In addition to the CIO turnover, Liberum counted

• 218 CEO changes in October, up 56 percent from 139 in September
• 164 CFO changes, up about 11 percent from 146 in September
• 477 board of director changes, up 86.3 percent over September

The banking industry saw the most management change (164), followed by manufacturing (158), drugs/biotech (134) and telecom (127.)

Richard Jacovitz, Liberum’s SVP and director of research, thinks Sarbanes-Oxley may be the root cause of the CEO, CFO and the director changes, especially as companies seek to make their boards more independent.