Good morning. Well, that was quick: Phil Graves was appointed CFO (his first time holding that title) at Meati Foods, an alternative meat company known for its MushroomRoot protein product, on Feb. 5. The startup announced on Tuesday that he’s now CEO.
Meati cofounder Tyler Huggins, who’s assuming the role of chief innovation officer, said in a statement that Graves is “the right individual to lead the company to our next exciting chapter.” (Graves was originally hired as finance chief succeeding former CFO Jody Macedonia, who left Meati at the end of 2023.)
Graves previously served as CEO of Wild Idea Buffalo Co. and before that was chief sustainability officer and foundation president at Bass Pro Shops, the VP of corporate development at Patagonia, and founder of its corporate venture fund, Tin Shed Ventures. Earlier in his career, Graves was a senior manager of advisory services at Deloitte and an associate in financial advisory services at PwC.
In its announcement on Tuesday, Meati, which confirmed via email that it’s reducing its workforce by 13%, also said it will “continue the work to right size its workforce and accelerate the company’s path to profitability.”
Founded in 2017, the company boasts a roster of well-known investors, including NBA All-Star Chris Paul, gold medal-winning gymnast Aly Raisman, and MLB Hall of Famer Derek Jeter. The brand is sold in over 3,600 locations nationwide, including Super Target and Whole Foods. In 2022, Meati announced it raised $150 million in a Series C investment. And in early 2023, the company announced that total funding is at more than $250 million.
Less well known are cases like Graves’ in which a new hire so quickly ascends to the top spot. It’s “very unusual timing,” Shawn Cole, president and founding partner of Cowen Partners, a C-suite-focused executive search firm, told me. “I think the better question is: Why was he hired as CFO in the first place? He’s not a CFO.”
Cole suggested that giving Graves the CFO title may have been a good way to get him in the door, perhaps with the idea of ultimately making him CEO, but “something else is at play here.”
CFOs are regularly considered among potential CEO successors, said Cole, adding: “I can’t say that any CFO I have ever placed has been specifically hired to be the future CEO, as it is a more natural progression of timing, earning trust, and building credibility. And while this can be done quickly, it takes more than a month.”
Although Graves was just a finance chief for about two weeks, it does reflect a larger trend of more CFOs being elevated to CEOs. And it’s a trend Cole believes will continue well into 2024.
“Especially in precarious financial conditions, boards look to CFOs as fiduciaries of the business,” he explained. “CFOs are more positively viewed by executives and boards as SMEs [subject matter experts] on revenue generation and business ops, and are more viable CEOs than ever before. Gone are the days of the chief accountant.”
Have a good weekend.
Sheryl Estrada
sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Some notable moves this week:
Tom Fitzgerald, CFO at Planet Fitness, Inc. (NYSE: PLNT) plans to retire at the end of August. The company will conduct a search to identify a new CFO with the assistance of an executive search firm. Fitzgerald, who joined the company in 2020, has a 40-year career in finance and executive leadership.
Philip Johnson was named EVP and CFO at Jazz Pharmaceuticals plc (Nasdaq: JAZZ), effective March 1. Johnson succeeds Renée Galá, who was promoted to president and chief operating officer in October 2023. Johnson joins Jazz Pharmaceuticals with over 35 years of financial experience, most recently leading Eli Lilly and Company's treasury and investor relations operations as group VP of finance.
Christina Chiu, EVP, COO, and CFO at Empire State Realty Trust, Inc. (NYSE: ESRT) has been promoted to president. Stephen V. Horn, SVP, chief accounting officer has been promoted to EVP, CFO and chief accounting officer.
Evangelos Perros was named CFO at Pagaya Technologies Ltd. (Nasdaq: PGY), a global technology company, effective immediately. Perros, who has served as the company's Interim CFO since November 2023, was previously the company’s deputy CFO and head of strategic finance since joining Pagaya in 2021. Before joining the company, Perros served as managing director and head of business planning and analysis at Apollo Global Management.
Jatin Rajput was named CFO at MPOWER Financing, a fintech firm. Rajput will step down from MPOWER's board and will be replaced by Rob Partlow, the company's previous CFO, who is retiring from full-time work and will join the board of directors. Most recently, Rajput was CFO of Deskera, a B2B SaaS platform, and founded Ad-In Ventures. Before that Rajput was a managing director at Deutsche Bank for 12 years.
Brian Paplaski was named CFO at Dynamic Renewables, an owner and operator of waste management and renewable fuel projects. Paplaski, who began in the role on Feb. 5, most recently was CFO at Certasite and was previously CFO at Kinetrex Energy, which was acquired by Kinder Morgan in 2021.
Han Wang was named CFO at Zhihu Inc. (NYSE: ZH), an online content community, effective immediately. Henry Dachuan Sha resigned as a director and the CFO and was appointed to chief investment officer of the company. Before joining the company, Wang had a leadership role at Access Technology Ventures, a global investment platform under Access Industries, Inc. He also served as vice president at Hillhouse Capital and a director at Legend Capital.
Big deal
Udemy (Nasdaq: UDMY), an online skills marketplace and learning platform, on Thursday released its Q4 2023 Global Workplace Learning Index, a quarterly report highlighting emergent skills that are growing in demand. 3.2 million learners had enrolled in more than 1,700 gen AI courses on the Udemy platform as of Q4.
The growth in enrollment in courses on LangChain and chatbot development skills suggests that workers are transitioning from just trying to understand what generative AI is to learning how they can apply the technology to their jobs, according to Udemy. The research also identified the top 10 global professional skills on the rise, and business idea generation takes the top spot (78%), followed by chatbot skills (56%), and business English (55%).
Going deeper
Here are a few Fortune weekend reads:
"Nvidia shatters stock market record by adding over $230 billion in value in one day. Here’s why it’s dominating the AI chip race" by Shawn Tully
"Reddit’s ‘unusual’ move to reward loyal users in its IPO could prove lucrative for Redditors" by Alicia Adamczyk
"Walmart’s $2.3 billion purchase of TV maker Vizio isn’t about TV sales, it’s about advertising" by Chris Morris
"Tesla’s chief designer has a side hustle: Leading coworkers through workouts in the company’s parking lot" by Jordyn Bradley
Overheard
“What sets Jensen apart is he’s a wartime CEO.”
—Gene Munster, managing partner at Deepwater Asset Management, said of Nvidia founder and CEO Jensen Huang, during an interview with Fortune. Even when Nvidia is out of favor with investor consensus, and facing near-term setbacks, the company stays "true to [its] view of the future," Munster said.
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