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Dell's Davis is CA's new CFO

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CIOL Bureau
New Update

Wei Gu



NEW YORK: Computer Associates International Inc. named a former Dell Inc. finance executive as its new chief financial officer, filling the last major vacancy after an accounting scandal at the software maker.



Robert Davis, who was most recently Dell's vice president of corporate finance and chief accounting officer, succeeds Jeff Clarke, who remains CA's chief operating officer. The appointment of Davis completes a nine-month search by Islandia, New York-based CA.



"While the news is hardly a surprise, this represents another important step in CA's management transition and effectively marks the last major piece of the puzzle," said Gregg Moskowitz, an analyst with Susquehanna Financial Group.



In the past year, Computer Associates has changed most of its executive suite as it tries to put behind a long-running accounting scandal. The company in November appointed IBM veteran John Swainson as its CEO-elect. Its former CEO Sanjay Kumar was indicated in September.



Clarke, a former Hewlett-Packard executive, was hired initially as CFO and promoted to be COO in April. Former CFO Ira Zar was fired in 2003 and pleaded guilty to charges for mishandling CA's numbers.



Davis' resignation from Dell, the world's largest personal computer maker, will be effective later this month. He will report to Clarke when officially joining Computer Associates on March 1st, 2005.



"Bob has been working for and leading a portion of the finance organization at Dell which is known for its outstanding rigor, discipline and controls," Clarke said in an interview, adding that CA still has several major openings in its finance department.



Davis has spent eight years at Dell and he was named vice president for corporate finance in 2001. He assumed the role of chief accounting officer in 2002, overseeing 400 finance staff. Before he joined Dell, Davis was assistant corporate controller at MCI Communications Corp. and had known Clarke from the Texas business community when Clarke was CFO of Compaq.



When asked about his compensation during a conference call with analysts, Davis said, "Both Dell and CA were very generous, I was well taken care of."

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