Dive Brief:

• Navan CFO Amy Butte will step down from her position effective Jan. 9, the company announced Monday as part of its third quarter earnings report for fiscal 2026 — its first earnings results since the corporate travel and expense platform went public in a $6.2 billion initial public offering in late October. The company’s chief accounting officer, Anne Giviskos, will serve as interim CFO after Butte’s departure as Navan searches for a permanent successor, according to a securities filing.
• Butte took the CFO chair for the Palo Alto, California-based company last year as Navan, formerly known as TripActions, began to prep for its IPO. She first joined the business as a member of its board of directors, serving as the chair of its audit committee, before assuming the CFO seat in June 2024, CFO Dive reported at the time. Her previous roles include a stint as finance chief for the New York Stock Exchange, which she helped shepherd through its own pivot to a public entity in 2006.
• “Much like the role she played earlier in her career at the New York Stock Exchange, Amy helped build out our finance organization and prepared the company for the public markets,” Navan Co-founder and CEO Ariel Cohen said of Butte’s coming departure Monday during the company’s earnings call. “With our listing now complete and the business carrying strong momentum, it was the right time for her to move on to find her next opportunity.”

Dive Insight:

Butte will remain with the travel platform as an advisor “through the earlier of the appointment of a full-time Chief Financial Officer and May 1, 2026,” according to the filing with the SEC.

In association with her advisory seat, she is set to receive six months of her base salary, along with the prorated portion of her annual target bonus for the fiscal year ending in Jan. 31, 2027, and a one-time cash payment of $3.7 million, according to the SEC filing. She will also receive accelerated vesting of 100% of the unvested amount of her outstanding restricted stock units and stock options as of Jan. 9, 2026, among other benefits.

A fellow NYSE alum, incoming interim CFO Giviskos has served in her current role as Navan’s CAO and SVP, strategic finance since last June, according to the filing. Her previous roles include serving as chief risk and compliance officer for Euronext, as well as roles across a 10-year span at the NYSE beginning in 2004 — overlapping with Butte’s tenure as the exchange’s CFO which began that year.

As interim CFO, Giviskos will receive an annual base salary of $500,000, as well as an annual incentive bonus opportunity up to $250,000 for the fiscal year ending Jan. 31, 2027, according to the filing.

“I'm really proud of what we were able to accomplish at Navan, including completing the IPO, and I wish the company and the leadership team continued success,” Butte said Monday during the company’s earnings call.

Shares of the travel platform dropped by about 15% on news of the CFO switch, as well as a jump in its net loss, extending a decline in Navan’s valuation. Butte’s departure comes approximately two months after the closing of the travel platform’s IPO on Oct.29, raising $923 million at a $6.2 billion valuation, about $3 billion less than the $9.2 billion investors valued the company at in 2022, according to a report by CNBC.

However, Navan’s valuation sank by a further 20% to $4.7 billion during its first full day of trading — something that could be partially due to regulatory uncertainty surrounding the unique circumstances of its public listing, according to a report by TechCrunch.

Navan was reportedly the first business to utilize a “workaround” implemented by the SEC which enabled IPOs during a government shutdown, TechCrunch reported. Businesses were allowed to receive automatic approval 20 days after the filing of their registration statement. However, the SEC reserves the right to review such documents at a later date, meaning a company could be required to amend their IPO documents should the regulator find material misstatements — a risk that likely contributed to the 20% slump in its first full day of trading, according to TechCrunch.

Executives on Monday hailed Navan’s Q3 as a “strong debut” for the platform as a public entity. For the quarter ended Oct. 31, Navan reported a 29% year-over-year jump in total revenue to $195 million as well as a 40% surge in gross bookings. However, the company’s net loss also ballooned to $225 million for the quarter, compared to $42 million for the prior year period.

Butte expressed confidence in the company’s ability to grow and improve its efficiency during the earnings call, noting Navan’s IPO has “significantly fortified our balance sheet.”

“We have streamlined our capital structure to improve our cost of capital and reduce our interest expense going forward,” Butte said. “We believe we will be more efficient because we expect to get better terms as a public company, and the health of our balance sheet lets us extend our capacity. We expect this to play out in growing payments revenue longer term as we are able to extend credit to more customers when we choose.”

Navan did not immediately respond to requests for comment.