Dive Brief:
- Waste Management's Board of Directors has elected Devina A. Rankin to the position of acting chief financial officer (CFO), according to a Securities and Exchange Commission report. Rankin will retain her existing positions as the company's vice president & treasurer, and receive a $50,000 cash bonus for taking on the additional responsibilities.
- Rankin has been with Waste Management since 2002 and has served as the company's vice president and treasurer since 2012.
- This decision was made in light of Waste Management's recent restructuring of executive leadership, in which James C. Fish Jr. was announced as the company's new CEO. Fish had served as the company's CFO prior to this announcement.
Dive Insight:
In a November press release announcing Fish's position as CEO, W. Robert Reum, non-executive chairman of the board, noted that the announcement was "the culmination of a succession planning process we started 18 months ago..." While it is unclear if Rankin's election to CFO was a planned part of this succession process, it was expected that someone would soon fill the position.
According to the SEC report, Rankin has a "held a number of corporate finance positions of increasing responsibility" during her time at Waste Management, therefore the decision to bring her on as acting CFO was of natural progression. While it is undetermined if Rankin will be officially appointed to the position in the near future, the decision to bring her on as acting CFO is a big win for women across the industry who push for more female representation in C-suite positions.
Waste Dive will continue to update this story as it develops.
