Dive Brief:

• Robinhood CFO Shiv Verma has delegated the principal accounting officer role he previously held to the company’s newly appointed Chief Accounting Officer Dara Bazzano, effective June 25, according to a Friday securities filing. Verma, who took the stock trading platform’s CFO seat in February, will remain the company’s finance chief and principal financial officer. 
• Bazzano, 58, joined Robinhood in April and her previous experience includes having served as CAO of wireless and broadband provider T-Mobile US and she held the same role at The Gap, the clothing retailer, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Bazzano is the company’s first CAO and reports to Verma, a company spokesperson said in an email to CFO Dive.   
• "We're excited to welcome Dara Bazzano as Chief Accounting Officer, leading our accounting and tax team, and serving as Principal Accounting Officer,” the spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “As Robinhood continues to grow and scale as a public company, adding another senior leader is a natural next step in the team's evolution.” 

Dive Insight:

Across several industries, the CFO role in recent years has continued to evolve into a more strategic one in which the finance chief is a partner to the CEO and board, according to Shawn Cole, president of the executive search firm Cowen Partners.   

As the more forward-looking mandate of CFOs expands, accounting and reporting responsibilities are more often delegated to a PAO, CAO or controller, he said in an email. “Combining the CFO and PAO roles is still common, especially in smaller or less complex organizations, but separating them becomes more logical as a company grows or faces greater regulatory complexity,” Cole said. 

Robinhood’s move followed an announcment by Starbucks earlier this month that CFO Cathy Smith transferred the coffee giant’s PAO role to Val Bauduin, the company’s SVP of corporate finance and development, CFO Dive previously reported. 

As for Robinhood, Cole views the change “less as the CFO shedding an unimportant responsibility and more as the company recognizing that accounting leadership and strategic finance have each become substantial, specialized roles,” Cole said in an email.

Bazzano’s responsibilities include accounting, tax, financial operations, financial reporting and internal control functions. Her compensation includes an annual base salary of $425,000, a target annual bonus of 40% of that base, as well as an annual equity target of $1.5 million, restricted stock units valued at about $3.3 million that will vest over two years, and a $400,000 sign-on bonus, according to the SEC filing. 

The Menlo Park, California-based company, which went public in 2021, has grappled with financial pressure recently. Earlier this month, it announced that it was cutting 10% of its workforce, or around 300 positions, to stay “disciplined,” one of a number of financial technology companies to do so in recent months, Bloomberg reported.  

The company’s net income rose 3% to $346 million in the first quarter compared to the year-earlier quarter while total net revenues rose 15% year-over-year to $1.07 billion, the company reported in April.