Baxter
(NYSE: BAX)
announced today that it appointed Joel Grade as EVP and chief financial officer (CFO).
Grade joins after more than two decades in financial roles in the food services industry. He succeeds Jay Saccaro, who departed for the same role at GE HealthCare in May. Saccaro spent 21 years at Baxter, with the last eight coming in the CFO capacity.
Reporting to Chair, President and CEO José (Joe) E. Almeida, Grade’s appointment goes into effect on Oct. 18, 2023. Brian Stevens, who served as interim CFO after Saccaro’s departure, will transition to his previous role as SVP, chief accounting officer and controller.
“Joel is a seasoned global financial executive with decades of deep operational and broad business experience as well as a proven record of results-driven impact,” said Almeida. “I am confident we will benefit from Joel’s leadership as we continue to advance the transformational actions announced earlier this year to help fuel enhanced growth, innovation and value for the patients, clinicians, investors and numerous other stakeholder communities that depend on us. I’d also like to thank Brian for serving as our interim CFO; we’re grateful for his contributions during the transition and look forward to his continued leadership in Baxter’s finance organization.”
Those “transformational actions” Almeida referenced come in the form of a business structure shakeup. Baxter announced earlier this year that it intends to spinoff or sell certain business units and construct a new operating model.
More about new Baxter CFO Joel Grade
Grade, 53, spent 25 years at Sysco, the world’s global foodservice leader with fiscal-year 2023 sales of more than $76 billion.
Most recently, he served as Sysco’s EVP of corporate development. He previously held the roles of EVP and CFO, as well as SVP of finance and chief accounting officer, plus SVP of foodservice operations. Grade began his career as a senior auditor at Ernst & Young.
“I’m very excited to join Baxter, an industry leader with a rich history, compelling future, patient-centric mission, and best-in-class talent,” said Grade. “The opportunity to contribute to Baxter’s ongoing transformation and make a meaningful difference for our many stakeholders is both motivating and well aligned with my experience in driving scale across large organizations and successfully executing against a company’s strategic objectives.”