Mary Jane Fortin | MassMutual
MassMutual’s finance chief Betsy Ward will retire at the end of this year after 30 years with the company. Ward will be replaced by Mary Jane Fortin, who has joined the life insurance company as a member of the executive leadership team and will be appointed CFO on January 1, 2025. Fortin previously worked at Thrivent Financial, where she was president and chief commercial officer, leading the company’s insurance and wealth management businesses. Before that, she was president of Allstate Financial. She earlier held senior management positions at AIG, The Hartford and PwC.
Lance Tucker | Jack in the Box
Lance Tucker will return to fast food chain Jack in the Box as its new finance chief on Jan. 13. Tucker rejoins the company from Davidson Hospitality Group, where he has been chief financial for the last two years. Tucker left Jack in the Box in July 2020 to take the top finance spot at CKE Restaurants, the company that runs and operates Carl’s Jr. and Hardee’s fast food restaurants. He previously spent seven years as CFO at pizza chain Papa John’s.
Julie Whalen | Expedia Group
Julie Whalen is stepping down as chief financial officer of Expedia Group after two years in the role. Whalen will step down once her successor is named, which is expected before Feb. 17, 2025. Whalen has also resigned as a member of the company’s board of directors. Whalen started as chief financial officer of the company in Sept. 2022 as the first woman to hold the role. She previously spent 21 years at home retailer Williams-Sonoma and held the CFO position for over 10 years.
Jillian Gillespie | Multiverse
Jillian Gillespie was appointed chief financial officer of Multiverse, a learning platform that helps businesses close skill gaps. Gillespie joins Multiverse from MongoDB, a developer data platform, where she was senior vice president of finance and operations. During her more than 10 years at MongoDB, Gillespie led it through international expansion and its IPO in 2017. She was earlier CFO of media company RollUp Media and director of finance at Google and started her career at Deloitte as an audit manager.
Luke Grossmann | U.S. Postal Service
Luke Grossmann was promoted to chief financial officer of the U.S. Postal Service, effective Nov. 30. Grossmann joined the USPS in 2005 and has been senior vice president of finance and strategy for the last five years. Other roles during his time at the postal service include director of operations research, insight and continuous improvement and district manager of Albany, New York. Grossmann succeeds Joseph Corbett, who will retire on Dec. 31.
Dana Pearson | Alamo Drafthouse
Alamo Drafthouse promoted Dana Pearson to chief financial officer and vice president of product and digital. Pearson joined the theater chain in 2021 as director of finance and was most recently vice president of finance. Pearson replaces Matt Vonderahe, who is stepping down after four years as CFO. Vonderahe will stay with the company through the end of the year to help with the transition.
Ravi Narula | SymphonyAI
Ravi Narula has joined enterprise AI SaaS company SymphonyAI as its new finance chief. Narula has over 25 years of experience in financial management, business leadership and corporate strategy, including executive roles in high-tech SaaS companies and at Deloitte. He has held several CFO at publicly traded companies, including at Ooma, Gigamon and BigBand Networks, where he led each company’s IPO. He has also been CFO at private companies Aura and Certinia.
Mahmoud Reza Banki | X
Mahmoud Reza Banki has joined X, formerly known as Twitter, as its new CFO — a role that has been vacant since former finance chief Ned Segal left in 2022. Banki joins Elon Musk’s social media platform from video streaming firm Tubi, where he was CFO for nearly seven years. In 2010, Banki was charged with “monetary violations of Iranian sanctions and making false statements” and was later pardoned by then-President Donald Trump in 2021. He has since developed a personal mission for criminal justice reform. Banki’s hire could help Musk delegate some of the day-to-day executive operations of the company to Banki, as Musk will likely have a role in the future Trump administration.
