Dive Brief:
- Rivian Automotive’s corporate controller Jon Franklin is leaving the electric vehicle maker, announcing his move late last week in a LinkedIn post about one month after news broke that the company’s long-time CFO Claire McDonough is leaving to become CFO of GE Vernova.
- Franklin, who has been with the company for four and a half years, called the goodbye “bittersweet.” He did not indicate where he was headed or whether he has already left. He also thanked McDonough, current Rivian Chief Accounting Officer Sreela Venkataratnam and former CAO Jeffrey Baker for their “investment” in his growth. Baker left Rivian for CoreWeave in 2024, according to his LinkedIn profile.
- McDonough responded to the announcement in a posted comment. “Jon Franklin thank you for the tremendous partnership,” she wrote. “You made a significant impact helping us scale Rivian…Wishing you all the best in your next chapter!”
Dive Insight:
Rivian’s finance team shakeup comes as the company is struggling to turn a profit while making investments on facilities that will help it ramp up vehicle deliveries even as U.S. EV sales are forecast to fall this year compared to last year after the expiration of an EV tax credit, according to a Sept. 1 note by Morningstar.
“We assume overhead expenses will decline as a percentage of sales as the company benefits from operating leverage as deliveries grow,” Senior Equity Analyst Seth Goldstein wrote. “As a result, we forecast companywide operating profits will turn positive by 2030.”
McDonough is poised to step down from Rivian’s CFO post on Oct. 30 after nearly six years in the seat, the company announced in an Aug. 27 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The company appointed VP of Finance Derek Mulvey as its interim CFO effective at the time of McDonough’s exit and said a comprehensive search was underway for the next permanent CFO, CFO Dive previously reported.
News of the two executives’ departures sparked numerous speculation regarding their possible implications on the social media platform Reddit.
“So maybe Claire leaving, followed by another senior finance departure, isn't evidence that something is wrong with Rivian,” one commenter wrote. “Maybe the board concluded that the finance organization that got Rivian through the startup/IPO/capital-raising phase isn't necessarily the team it wants for the scale/profitability phase.”
In its second quarter earnings report, the company said it started “external deliveries” of R2, a mid-size SUV produced in its Normal, Illinois plant. The company said it is also building a second plant in Georgia that will add up to 300,000 units of annual capacity, according to the July report.
The company reported a narrower net loss of $837 million in Q2 compared to $1.15 billion in the year-earlier period.
The company did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
