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Microsoft's finance chief leaves for venture-capital firm
Posted by: Anonymous on Jan 13, 2005 - 06:41 PM
Microsoft
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SEATTLE -- In a surprise announcement Tuesday, Microsoft said its chief financial officer, John Connors, is leaving to join a venture-capital investment firm. onnors joined Microsoft 16 years ago and served as its top finance official the past five years. He helped the company complete the transition from tech highflier to more mature corporate giant. ''He's done a really good job during a tough time, and now there's kind of a break in the action,'' says tech industry analyst Matt Rosoff of research firm Directions on Microsoft. ''It's a good time to go.''
Connors, 45, drew the thankless task of reining in some of the excesses of the late 1990s. He wrote down billions of dollars in bad telecom investments. He paid out billions more to settle antitrust lawsuits with rivals Novell, Sun Microsystems and America Online, as well as consumer class-action lawsuits in more than a dozen states. And he signed off on a record $613 million fine paid to the European Commission as part of sanctions for using illegal antitrust practices.
Connors also eliminated employee stock options and began dividend payments, including a gargantuan $32 billion one-time special dividend.
Microsoft faces a fresh set of challenges. It must resolve increasing security breaches of its Windows operating system and Internet Explorer browser, and fight competition from the open-source Linux operating system, especially overseas. It will probably need to make acquisitions, not without risk, to get deeper into the home entertainment market.
''The CFO role in any company is just painful,'' says Rob Enderle, principal analyst at Enderle Group.
In a statement, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said: ''John has done an awesome job building a world-class finance organization for Microsoft and leaves behind him a very capable team.''
Microsoft plans to consider both internal and external candidates to replace Connors. The company did not say when Connors is leaving. It said he will help with the transition.
Connors will become a partner at Ignition Partners in Bellevue, Wash. His move comes as the venture-capital industry is on the rise again.
VCs invest in start-ups, especially in the tech industry, on behalf of pension funds and other institutions. Reflecting tech's recovery, VCs last year invested an estimated $20 billion in start-ups, the first annual increase in four years.
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© Copyright 2004 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc.
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