Dive Brief:
- QXO Inc. promoted CFO Ihsan Essaid to a vice chairman seat, where he will oversee the company’s mergers and acquisitions strategy and capital-raising activities, the product distribution business announced Thursday. The role is not a board seat, but makes Essaid QXO’s internal M&A leader, the business said in an email to CFO Dive.
- Meanwhile, the business appointed Dev Ahuja, a financial executive from Novelis, as its incoming CFO. Both appointments will be effective as of January 2027, according to the Thursday press release and securities filing.
- The CFO transition comes as the Greenwich, Connecticut-based building materials distributor targets ambitious growth. The business, which also reported earnings for its third quarter of 2026 on Thursday, remains on track to achieve $50 billion in annual revenue within the decade, CEO and Chairman Brad Jacobs said in a statement.
Dive Insight:
Ahuja will receive an annual base salary of $900,000 as QXO’s CFO, and will be eligible for an annual bonus opportunity of 115% of his base pay, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He will also receive an equity sign-on award comprised of restricted stock units with a grant date value of $4.5 million.
Alongside other compensation, Ahuja beginning in March 2027 will also be eligible to receive annual long-term incentive awards comprising RSUs with a grant date value of about $1.1 million, as well as performance-based restricted stock units with a grant date value $2.1 million, according to the filing.
In his new role, Essaid will continue to report to and work closely with Jacobs as the business continues its growth plans. The business, one of several Jacobs has founded — a list which also includes XPO Inc. United Rentals, and GXO Logistics — sees M&A as a “core driver of value creation,” Jacobs said Thursday.
Jacobs described Essaid, an alum of Barclays where he served as its global head of M&A, as an M&A “heavy hitter” when QXO first appointed him as its first CFO in 2024, CFO Dive reported at the time.
The company has pursued an aggressive acquisitions strategy under Essaid’s financial tenure, inking several major acquisitions over the past two years — including Beacon Roofing Supply, building materials acquisition business Kodak Building Partners and building material provider TopBuild.
The acquisitions have helped to push QXO’s enterprise valuation to approximately $20.5 billion, with a market capitalization of about $13.2 billion, according to data from Yahoo Finance.
Essaid’s successor Ahuja has M&A chops of his own. During his 10-year tenure as CFO for Novelis, a rolled-aluminum product manufacturer, he helped to facilitate the company’s $2.8 billion acquisition of Aleris Corporation, a rolled aluminum supplier, in 2020, according to a press release at the time.
Under his financial leadership, Novelis — which Ahuja joined in 2016 as its CFO — also raised $8 billion through both M&A and debt refinancings, QXO said in the Thursday announcement.
Ahuja will remain with Novelis through mid-January 2027 to help ensure a smooth transition, he wrote in a Wednesday post on LinkedIn detailing his coming departure from the business. In a follow-up post Thursday, Ahuja announced his coming move to QXO, where he noted Jacobs is “no stranger to doing amazingly successful and flawless industry consolidations.”
“QXO is a big move to drive consolidation in the building materials distribution and construction services space, in a highly fragmented $800 billion market,” Ahuja, whose past experiences also include a 15-year career at pharmaceutical manufacturing business Novartis, wrote in the Thursday post. “I am deeply excited by the prospect of being a core partner for unlocking, what I see as huge value, under [Jacobs’] leadership along with the QXO Executive team he has so carefully built.”
The CFO transition also comes as the building materials provider aims to continue its growth push as it faces mounting headwinds. The business’ stock price has dipped by about 35% year-to-date amid a weakening housing market and concerns over the effective integrations of its acquisitions, as well as high debt on its balance sheet, according to reports.
Also Thursday, QXO reported results for its third quarter ended Sept. 30, with $4.9 billion in net sales, compared to $2.7 billion for the prior year period. The company also reported a net loss of $123 million for the period, narrowed from $139 million in the prior year period. Long-term net debt for the period reached about $9 billion.
The company remains “on track” to achieve its $50 billion revenue goal “within the decade” through a combination of organic growth and “disciplined acquisitions,” Jacobs said in the earnings release.
