Corporate Travel seeks fourth CFO in four years
Corporate Travel Management will employ its fourth chief financial officer in as many years, following the resignation of another top number cruncher from the $2.9 billion business travel specialist.
The company on Monday said its current CFO, Cale Bennett, is leaving to take a job with $5 billion ASX enterprise software outfit TechnologyOne.
Jamie Pherous of Corporate Travel. Attila Csaszar
Brisbane-based Corporate Travel won and renewed key UK and Australian government contracts in April. The margins it pitched for the contract were not disclosed, but UBS analysis said Corporate Travel’s high exposure to government work helps to reduce earnings volatility.
Corporate Travel has been a divisive stock. Short-sellers, who make money from share prices falling, have published critiques of the company including about its accounting and rapid growth via acquisitions.
The company has rejected such claims. It counts established blue-chip institutions among its client base.
Its CFO between 2008 and July 2019 was Steve Fleming, who the company said stepped down from the top finance job to focus on Corporate Travel’s European division accounts. He left that role nine months later, according to his Linkedin profile.
His replacement, coming from gaming giant Tatts, was Neale O’Connell, who departed in June 2021, with the company championing him for having “transformed our group finance function”. His successor was Mr Bennett, who has also worked at Tatts and Bank of Queensland.
Mr Bennett is due to depart on July 28 and be replaced in an acting role by Corporate Travel’s current group general manager for finance, James Patterson, the company said.
Corporate Travel founder and chief executive Jamie Pherous said Mr Bennett had made a
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