Hoboken-based John Wiley & Sons (NYSE: JW-A) is slated to lose its chief financial officer when Ellis Cousens, current CFO and also chief operations officer, retires at the end of fiscal 2014. Rather than wait for that event, though, Wiley announced Monday that it is going ahead and naming a new CFO now.
John Kritzmacher, former CFO of Lucent Technologies and Global Crossing, will become Wiley's executive vice president and chief financial officer, effective July 1. He will be responsible for all of Wiley's global finance functions and activities, business development, mergers and acquisitions, and investor relations. Cousens, meanwhile, will stay on at the company until retiring, overseeing "certain global operations" and also the company's $80 million restructuring program until that time.
In his past roles at Lucent and Global Crossing, Kritzmacher helped shepherd both companies into sales -- Lucent to Alcatel in 2006, and then Global Crossing to Level 3 in 2011.
Calling Kritzmacher "the perfect fit for Wiley," company CEO Steve Smith praised the new hire's "extraordinary track record of accomplishment and leadership in the areas of mergers and acquisitions, capital and strategic management, accounting and financial controls, restructuring, turnarounds, operations management, and investor relations."
Going forward, however, investors will probably be focusing primarily on his track record in the M&A field in particular.
