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By Matthew Quinn
Charles Noski sure knows how to make a grand reentrance into the world of corporate finance.
The 57-year-old walked away from his job as CFO of Northrup Grumman in 2005 and has spent the last five years sitting on various boards, including Microsoft, Morgan Stanley, Automatic Data Processing and Air Products and Chemicals.
But Noski apparently couldn't resist the C-suite - or a major challenge - and will fill Bank of America's vacant CFO spot, effective May 11. Neil Cotty, the bank's chief accounting officer, had been interim CFO since January, when former finance chief Joe Price was named president of consumer, small-business and card banking.
New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo has targeted Price
and former B of A CEO Ken Lewis in a lawsuit, charging them with securities
fraud related to the bank’s acquisition of Merrill Lynch.
Though he hasn't held a CFO job in five years, Noski is a highly experienced executive. Prior to holding the top finance spot at Northrup Grumman from 2003 to 2005, he was the CFO at AT&T for four years. He also spent 17 years at Deloitte & Touche before joining satellite and wireless communications company Hughes Electronics in 1990. He worked at Hughes until 1999, rising to president and chief operating officer at the then publicly-traded subsidiary of General Motors.
Noski became something of a superstar CFO while at AT&T and was a top candidate for the CEO position, thanks to his significant role in the sale of the telecom giant's cable television and broadband business to Comcast, a deal valued at $72 billion. Noski eventually took himself out of the running for the job and stepped down in 2002, in no small part due to tiring of the commute between AT&T's New Jersey headquarters and his family's home in southern California.
Those skills he attained at AT&T to handle major divestitures could come in handy if legislation like the Volcker Rule ever goes into effect and B of A is forced to unload some of its businesses.
And while Noski has never had any day-to-day experience in banking, his time on Morgan Stanley's board, where he heads up the audit committee, has surely made him well versed in all the issues facing the industry.
He's also no stranger to tough turnarounds.
When asked in 2002 by CFO magazine whether he agreed with the characterization by Ralph Larsen, then the CEO of Johnson & Johnson and a former AT&T board member, that he had "the toughest CFO job in America" as finance chief at AT&T, Noski responded, "It's certainly one of the most challenging."
One has to wonder if he'll be quite so modest about his new job if he's asked that question again in a few years.
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