GE Exec is New Dell CFO — Gladden Expected to Focus on Cost- Cutting

By David Koenig

DALLAS – Donald Carty, who became Dell Inc.’s chief financial officer less than 18 months ago when the computer maker’s accounting was under scrutiny, is stepping down and will be replaced by a longtime General Electric Co. executive.

Brian Gladden, chief executive of SABIC Innovative Plastics, formerly called GE Plastics, will join Dell today and succeed Carty as CFO on June 13.

The transition comes at a critical juncture for Dell. Company officials believe they have accounting issues under control, but Dell still trails Hewlett-Packard Co. in worldwide shipments of personal computers and is cutting jobs and spending to meet financial targets.

Dell is expanding beyond phone and Internet sales to sell machines through retailers, and it is expanding its reach in emerging markets such as China to recapture the robust growth rates of its earlier years.

Gladden, 43, said he was “excited to be joining Dell at a time of transformation.” He held a series of financial and management jobs at GE and has served as president and CEO of SABIC Innovative Plastics since it was spun off from GE last August.

The company, which makes polymers used by electronics, office equipment, computer and auto manufacturers, is a unit of Saudi Basic Industries Corp., or SABIC. The plastics unit named Charlie Crew, general manager of its global ventures business, to replace Gladden.

Coming from another industry, Gladden is not well-known among analysts who cover Dell, but they expect he will focus on cost- cutting.

Ben Reitzes, an analyst for Lehman Brothers, said he wants Gladden to explain how Dell will achieve its goal of cutting $3 billion in spending and how much of the savings will translate to profit.

Hewlett-Packard CEO Mark Hurd had that kind of line-by-line handle on costs after he was hired in 2005, said Reitzes, who also wants Gladden to continue making Dell’s finances easier for investors to understand.

Dell will pay Gladden a $700,000 annual base salary and a minimum target bonus of the same amount next March, plus a $2 million signing bonus, 223,000 restricted shares of stock and options on 922,000 shares, according to a company filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission.

Dell spokesman David Frink said Carty, 61, was not pushed out. He said Carty indicated several months ago that he wanted to retire , and the company hired the executive search firm of Heidrick & Struggles, which brought Gladden to Dell’s attention.

Originally published by David Koenig Associated Press .

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