Name: Karen Parkhill
New title: CFO, HP
Previous title: CFO, Medtronic
Karen Parkhill is leaving Medtronic to become CFO at HP on Aug. 2, the companies said Wednesday.
Medtronic will appoint Gary Corona, its senior vice president of global financial planning and analysis, as interim CFO when Parkhill leaves and is evaluating internal and external candidates as permanent successors. Parkhill joined Medtronic as CFO in 2016 from financial services company Comerica.
Medtronic reaffirmed its first quarter and full-year guidance in the notice about Parkhill’s resignation, but the departure raised questions among analysts. The “key question for investors is whether Karen’s decision to move to another company that is having growth challenges is signaling anything,” analysts with Evercore ISI wrote in a research note.
The last similar executive move was when Illumina’s CFO left for Quest Diagnostics, the analysts wrote. Illumina slashed its sales growth forecast the month after its former CFO joined Quest. However, Medtronic is at the start of a turnaround with “several new product cycles,” they added.
Truist Securities analysts said in a note to investors that “there could be some investor angst until a permanent successor is announced and ‘reblesses’ recently-issued guidance.” While accepting “any CFO change naturally sparks a degree of uncertainty,” the Truist analysts said Parkhill’s departure to pursue another opportunity “appears to be fairly benign/explainable.”
Parkhill will receive an annual base salary of $950,000 as CFO of HP. The tech company is also paying Parkhill a $1.5 million cash signing bonus and offering a target annual cash bonus of 135% of base salary. At Medtronic, Parkhill’s base salary was $911,000 with a target cash bonus of 110% in the 2023 financial year. The company did not meet the requirements for the incentive bonus last year.