COO Moves this week include:
Uber | Renew Financial | Cedar Fair Entertainment Company |
The Travelers Companies, Inc. | Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. | Renaissance® |
Apttus | M&T Bank Corporation | San Francisco Federal Credit Union |
MTGE Investment Corp. | Ares Management, L.P. | Lattice Biologics Ltd. |
Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. | CommScope |
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COO Moves is published by Samuel Dergel (Executive Search Consultant with Dergel Executive Search). Samuel can be reached by email at samuel@dergelsearch.com or by phone at +1 (415) 738-2070.
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Uber [San Francisco, California] has announced Barney Harford will be joining Uber as Chief Operating Officer. Barney is the former CEO of Orbitz. He has served as an advisor to Uber since October. Barney came to the US from the UK in 1999 to work at Expedia when it was still part of Microsoft. Barney serves on the boards of United Airlines and RealSelf, where he is chairman.
Renew Financial [OAKLAND, Calif.] announced that Joel Eckhause has joined the firm as Chief Operating Officer. During the course of his 20-year career—from Ford Motor Company and HSBC, to Capital One and Bank of the West—Eckhause led teams responsible for product and pricing, emerging technology, marketing, credit risk, operational leadership and business unit strategy. He’s also served on the leadership teams of four residential lending businesses. Most recently at Bank of the West, Eckhause served as Senior Vice President and Head of Residential and Unsecured Lending. Prior to joining Bank of the West, Eckhause served as the head of Home Loans Servicing & Default for Capital One.
Cedar Fair Entertainment Company [SANDUSKY, Ohio] (NYSE: FUN) announced that Tim Fisher will join the company as chief operating officer. Fisher joins Cedar Fair from Village Roadshow. Most recently, Fisher served as chief executive officer of Village Roadshow Theme Parks from January 2009 until March 2017. Prior to joining Village Roadshow, Fisher served more than 30 years in the theme park industry including serving as executive vice president of Paramount Parks and Viacom Recreation.
The Travelers Companies, Inc. [NEW YORK] (NYSE: TRV) announced that Brian MacLean, President and Chief Operating Officer, will retire after 30 years with the company, effective March 31, 2018.
Metropolitan Bank Holding Corp. [NEW YORK] (NYSE: MCB) announced that Gerard A. Perri has been named to the newly created position of Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. Perri is returning to the Company after having previously served with Metropolitan Commercial Bank from its founding in 1999 until 2006 as its Chief Financial Officer. Immediately prior to rejoining Metropolitan, Perri held senior executive positions with several public and private community banks in the New York area.
Renaissance® [WISCONSIN RAPIDS, WIS.] announced the appointment of Mike Evans as the organization’s chief operating officer. Evans has served as Renaissance’s CFO since October 2015, and was interim chief executive officer (CEO) until Renaissance appointed Daniel Hamburger as CEO in July 2017. Prior to joining Renaissance, Evans led Pearson’s K–12 literacy and math business lines. At BigChalk, Evans was the COO, overseeing key operations for the web-based company.
Apttus [SAN MATEO, Calif.] has appointed Raj Verma to Chief Operating Officer. Verma most recently served as President and Chief Operating Officer at Hortonworks. Prior to Hortonworks, he had a long tenure at TIBCO, where he held numerous executive positions including COO, CMO, Head of Worldwide Sales, and Director of Strategic Initiatives. Earlier in his career, Verma held sales management positions at Parametric Technology Corporation.

M&T Bank Corporation [BUFFALO, N.Y.] (NYSE: MTB) named Richard S. Gold President and Chief Operating Officer of M&T and M&T Bank. Mr. Gold was also elected to the Board of Directors of both M&T and M&T Bank. Gold began his career with M&T Bank in 1989 and has held numerous managerial positions in retail banking, consumer lending, mortgage and business banking. In 2007, he was appointed to the Management Committee, and in 2014, he was named Vice Chairman and took on the role of Chief Risk Officer.

San Francisco Federal Credit Union [SAN FRANCISCO] announced that Sherry Javad has joined the credit union as chief operations officer. Prior to joining San Francisco Federal Credit Union, she was vice president of retail delivery for First Financial Credit Union and chief operations officer for Telesis Community Credit Union.
MTGE Investment Corp. [BETHESDA, Md.] (NASDAQ: MTGE) announced Peter J. Federico, who currently serves as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer, will be promoted to President and Chief Operating Officer. Federico joined MTGE in 2011 and has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer since July 2016. Federico was previously the Company’s Senior Vice President and Chief Risk Officer.
Ares Management, L.P. [LOS ANGELES] (NYSE: ARES) announced Chief Financial Officer Michael McFerran has been appointed as Ares’ Chief Operating Officer in addition to continuing to serve as Ares’ Chief Financial Officer. Since 2015, Mr. McFerran has served as Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer of Ares Management, a Partner in and Head of the Ares Finance Department, and a member of the Management Committee of Ares Management. Among other duties, he serves as a member of the Ares Operations Management Group and the Ares Enterprise Risk Committee. Prior to joining Ares in March 2015, McFerran was a Managing Director at KKR where he was Chief Financial Officer of KKR’s credit business and Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer at KKR Financial Holdings LLC.
Lattice Biologics Ltd. [BELGRADE, Mont.] (TSX-V: LBL) (OTCQB: LBLTF) announced Darrell Holmes, chief operating officer, resigned his position on December 1, 2017, to pursue other commercial opportunities.
Aegean Marine Petroleum Network Inc. [NEW YORK] (NYSE: ANW) announced Manolis Chochlakis as the Company’s Chief Operating Officer. Manolis’ career at Aegean spans 9 years in a variety of roles in the physical supply side of the business. The past three years have been spent in New York as head of the group’s activities and expansion in the Americas while also contributing to the oversight of Aegean’s global oil storage facilities.

CommScope [HICKORY, N.C.] (NASDAQ: COMM) has named Morgan Kurk as executive vice president and chief operating officer. Kurk, currently chief technology officer for the company, replaces Randy Crenshaw, who is retiring December 31 after 32 years with CommScope. Prior to his new appointment as COO, Kurk has served CommScope as chief technology officer, senior vice president and Wireless segment leader, and senior vice president and Enterprise segment leader. Overall, he has approximately 25 years of experience in information and communication technology industries, beginning with Motorola, where he was a hardware development engineer for base stations and a product manager for a CDMA base station product line. He focused on wireless coverage problems in 1997 when he joined Allen Telecom, which later became part of Andrew Corporation and ultimately CommScope. Kurk held a variety of positions including director of business development in the United States and China; vice president of research and development, product line management, and strategy; and vice president and general manager of the Wireless Innovations Group worldwide.