Alphabet (GOOG, GOOGL) has announced that Anat Ashkenazi, the current Eli Lilly (LLY) CFO, will become the company’s new CFO. Bank of America Securities senior internet technology analyst Justin Post joins Catalysts to discuss the move and what the leadership shake-up could mean for the tech giant’s future.
“There’s some uncertainty. It’s taken longer than people expected to get a CFO,” Post explains. He adds that Ashkenazi is joining Alphabet during a “good cost trajectory,” beating earnings expectations last quarter and executing small layoffs. “The cost focus is already at Google at this point, which we think is a positive for the stock,” he says.
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This post was written by Melanie Riehl
Video Transcript
Leadership shake up coming to Alphabet the tech giant announcing that former Eli Lily CFO not Ashkenazi will take over the role as Chief Financial Officer.
Alphabet has announced that its current CFO Ruth Perra will start her new role as president and Chief investment Officer next month.
For more on what this could signal for the company moving forward.
We have just I post, he is Bank of America’s Securities Senior internet technology analyst and he is joining us live from Bank of America’s Global Technology Conference in San Francisco.
Thank you so much for being here with us, Justin, talk to me about your reaction to this news coming out of Alphabet.
I know that Google is under your coverage here.
Are you surprised by the move?
And do you think that it was a good one for them?
Sure.
I think uh first of all, thanks for having me, Madison.
I’m glad to be here.
Um I think it was a clears up an overhang, there’s some uncertainty, it’s taking longer than people expected to get a CFO obviously someone with deep experience and experience with long product cycles, which I think works well for Google.
So socks up a little bit this morning.
Uh, again, I think, not, not a big overhang on the stock but, but clears up some uncertainty and, and certainly someone with that kind of deep experience is probably good for the company.
So I think that’s how the street is taking it and, and how we’re looking at it at this point.
Uh, obviously someone outside of the technology area.
So, uh, don’t know a lot about her track record whether she’s a growth CFO or expense CF uh what is different this time versus when Ruth took over, uh, many years ago is the company is already on a good cost trajectory.
Uh, they just beat last quarter and part of it was expense upside and they’ve been doing uh, small layoffs this year.
So the cost focus is already at Google at this point which we think is a positive for the stock.
