Transport company's CFO announces retirement

Just after Google’s chief financial officer resigned to spend more time with his family, his counterpart at Uber has followed suit, announcing that his ride “is coming to and end”.

Brent Callinicos’s stated reasons for leaving Uber are not that much different than Google’s Patrick Pichette, who announced that he was leaving his post to spend more time with his wife and to backpack around the world.

In a memo, Callinicos echoes a lot of what Pichette said last week.

“Time has a way of passing quickly, easily leaving your heart’s desire to ‘maybe happen later.’ For me, there is no later. It is now. It is time to do what I have desired for a very long time: time to keep a promise to my wife of not missing another school play, swim meet, or academic achievement of our daughter’s childhood,” he wrote in his memo.

He goes on to say that it’s time to admit to himself that “every day I work, I lose time with my family”.

Both Callinicos and Pinchette worked at Google between 2008 and 2012, Pinchette as CFO and Callinicos as vice-president and treasurer, it is not clear whether Pinchette’s resignation inspired Callinicos.

“While my 21 years with Microsoft and Google rushed by, this is even more true of my time with Uber, and I am especially thankful to be ending my career ride right here at Uber,” he wrote.

He said that for Uber, “the ride has barely gotten started” and that his successor will “take this amazing company to the next level as CFO”.

Callinicos has spent the last two years working at Uber, which was most recently valued at $41bn.

The company has raised more than $5bn by investors like Benchmark, Google Ventures, First Round Capital and BlackRock, his resignation is breathing fire into speculations that Uber might go public later this year.

“Brent has done a wonderful job here at Uber but has decided that it is time for his next journey, one where his wife and daughter take the front seat,” Uber CEO and co-founder Travis Kalanick wrote in an email sent to the staff and investors. “Though two years sounds short, Uber was a much smaller startup then – about 1/10th the size we are today. Brent has provided critical leadership to take Uber to the next level as we matured as a company.”

Callinicos is to remain an adviser to the company, in the meantime, Gautam Gupta, described by Kalanick as “Brent’s right hand on strategic finance”, will become acting head of finance.

In the last year, CFOs at Apple and Amazon have also left their posts.

“I love Apple and the people I have had the privilege to work with and after 18 years here, it is time for me to take time for myself and my family,” said Peter Oppenheimer, Apple’s former CFO who retired in September.

“For quite some time, I have wanted to live on the central coast of California and get more involved at Cal Poly, my alma mater; spend more time with my wife and sons; travel to interesting parts of the world; and something I have wanted to do for years – finish the requirements for my pilot’s license.”

Amazon’s CFO Thomas Szkutak is set to retire in June of this year, in a statement, he said he is looking forward “to spending more time with my family and other outside interests”.