(Bloomberg) -- 3M Co. Chief Financial Officer Monish Patolawala is stepping down to take the same role at another company, further shaking up the industrial product maker’s leadership after a CEO change earlier this year.
Patolawala will remain through the end of the month with 3M, which has initiated a succession process to identify a replacement, the company said Wednesday in a statement. The executive will join agriculture supply company Archer-Daniels-Midland Co. as CFO on Aug. 1, according to a separate statement.
The move comes shortly after aerospace veteran Bill Brown took the helm as 3M’s chief executive officer. Patolawala was in the finance role for four years and helped guide the company through the spinoff of its health-care business, Solventum Corp., and multiple billion-dollar settlements over the company’s role in contaminated drinking water.
“New external hire CEOs typically like to hand-pick their own CFOs at least three-quarters of the time, so this announcement is consistent with the practice where Bill Brown can select his own finance executive,” Deane Dray, an analyst with RBC Capital Markets, said in a note. “This ‘brain drain’ of losing high-caliber employees in the running for top management positions is a relatively common outcome.”
Shares in 3M were little changed at 9:32 a.m. in New York. The stock was up 9.1% this year through Tuesday, compared to a 17% increase in the S&P 500. ADM shares rose 1.3% Wednesday.
Patolawala’s announcement is the latest CFO move announced this week among S&P 500 companies, following the departure of Chipotle Mexican Grill Inc.’s finance chief and United Parcel Service Inc.’s appointment of a new executive to that role.
(Updates with share trading in fifth paragraph)
©2024 Bloomberg L.P.
