Four Months, Then He Gave It Back
Rakesh Sachdev was an independent director when Axalta's chief executive quit. He ran the company four months, handed it back, and now chairs it into a $25 billion merger.
Archive
Six Hundred Thousand, Nine Years Later
Ramesh Srinivasan signed a new Agilysys contract in June at the same $600,000 salary he started on in 2017. The upside sits behind three share-price hurdles.
Nine Universities, Nineteen Days
The Education Department sent the University of Arizona and eight peers a compact. Suresh Garimella had nineteen days to answer, and a budget he had only just balanced.
The Date the Board Took Off the Calendar
A Teleperformance board set January 1, 2026 as the day Bhupender Singh would run a CAC 40 group alone. He left sixteen months before it.
Fifteen Months Before ChatGPT
Vishal Misra shipped a GPT-3 product into production in September 2021, then built the theory explaining it. Columbia made him its first AI vice dean - without the machines.
Twenty-Five Million, Out of the Money
Shankh Mitra became Welltower's chief executive the day it disclosed 78.4 percent occupancy. Six years later he put $25 million of his own money behind a $350 strike.
Seventeen Months, Then One Dollar
Siddhartha Kadia sold his last public company for a dollar a share. Mesa Laboratories hired him anyway, then waited a hundred days to hear why it should have.
Seven Hundred and Eighty-Nine Days
Vivek Sankaran agreed to sell Albertsons to Kroger for $24.6 billion. A federal judge stopped it 789 days later. Five months after that, he retired.
Two Billion Dollars, Then Two Directors
Somesh Khanna was paid for a career to tell banks what to do. Then a Canadian bank bought 14.9 percent of an American one and handed him a vote.
Sixty Deals, Then a Seat
Viasat put Shekar Ayyar straight onto the committee running its strategic review. He had overseen 60-plus deals at VMware and seen Altair through a $10 billion sale.
Two Losses, Then $10.91
Encore Capital lost money two years running on its European book. Ashish Masih rebased it, took the charge, and twelve months later reported $10.91 a share.
Minus One, Then Minus Nine
Cricut's revenue decline had shrunk from 14 percent to 1 percent while net income rose two years running. Then the second quarter of 2026 came in down 9 percent.
Two Days Before the Filing
Hughes handed Ramesh Ramaswamy the operating seat on July 31. Two days later the company filed for Chapter 11. He has been there since 1985.
The Seat That Closed, Then Two Buyers
Prakash Raman ran a biotech that shut down five months after he left it. His next company just dosed its first patient with Sanofi and Lilly on the cap table.
Two Thousand Dollars Per Socket
NVIDIA put a published price on enterprise AI in 2021 and found dozens of buyers. Manuvir Das ran that business. Western Digital has now put him on its board.
Seven Months Between Seats
Keurig Dr Pepper ended two of Sudhanshu Priyadarshi's titles in one sentence in November 2025. Planet Fitness has now handed him both of them back.
Thirty-Nine Percent, Then Three
Enact's loss ratio hit 39 percent in the pandemic year. Rohit Gupta listed the mortgage insurer anyway, in an offering that raised the company nothing.
The Deal He Voted For
Brady's board decided to buy a $1.4 billion Honeywell division in April, then handed the company to a director who helped choose it. He had 56 days.
First Place, Then $1.725 Billion
Anand Eswaran took Veeam from second in its market to first, then spent $1.725 billion on software that is not backup. His own survey explains why.
Five Records, Same Strategy
Protolabs revenue went backwards in 2024. In May 2025 the board changed chief executives mid-quarter and reaffirmed guidance the same day. Five straight record quarters followed.
Two Hundred Million by 2030
Arteris will pay Saurabh Sinha a $1 million stock award if revenue reaches $200 million by 2030. Last year it was $70.6 million. He starts September 8.
The Man Named in the Risk Factors
Zscaler paid $675 million for Red Canary. For two quarters the deal was the difference between the growth Jay Chaudhry reported and the growth he earned.
Nine Months, Then One Day
Kulicke & Soffa had run nine months without a permanent chief executive. It signed Raj Talluri on a Wednesday. He quit Enovix on Thursday; its shares fell 16%.
Forty Days to Fill the Seat
Six Flags lost its finance chief and its top lawyer on the same day. Ash Walia took the books forty days later, with $4.9 billion in net debt.
Eleven Months, Then the Outsider
Daktronics warned the SEC in 2022 there was substantial doubt it could continue. Three years later its board went outside its own bench for a chief executive.
Twelve Weeks, Then $6.5 Billion
In twelve weeks CenturyLink disclosed $9.2 billion of write-downs and cut its dividend to $1.00 from $2.16. Neel Dev met every outlook measure that year anyway. Wesco just hired him.
Two Listings, One Unfilled Seat
Harmit Singh was finance chief when Hyatt listed at $25 a share and when Levi Strauss listed at $17. In April he raised guidance and announced his retirement.
The Chairman Gave Himself the Job
Conduent's board handed the chief executive's seat to its own chairman in January. Six months later revenue was down 11.9% and Harsha V. Agadi had sold two businesses.
The Word He Chose Was Slop
In January YouTube's chief executive named the thing his own AI tools help produce. More than a million channels used those tools daily in December. Both facts are his.
Three Hundred and Eighty-Five Days
On March 31, 2026, Tarun Lal put a number in writing for Dave & Buster's fiscal year. Seventy-six days later the quarter missed. Forty-nine days after that, he retired.
Ten Billion Dollars, Due 2029
In April Arvind Krishna reaffirmed more than 5 percent growth. In July he cut it, and committed over $10 billion to quantum computing with a 2029 deadline attached.
One Minute Apart
Vimal Kapur spent three years taking apart the company he was handed. On June 29 the last piece left. What remains must now prove it is better.
Twenty-Two Months to BBB-
In December 2022 Mohit Singh told the market Chesapeake was on the path to investment grade. It took twenty-two months. Archrock handed him its books in July.
Two Presidents, One Chair
Jayshree Ullal held the president title at Arista Networks for seventeen years. In September 2025 the board rewrote the bylaws and gave it to two other people.
Sixty Percent Is the Easy Part
Integreon ran almost six months on an interim chief executive while AI came for document review. In June the board handed Krishna Nacha the company.
The Sale Arrived First
Amit Banati took the Kenvue finance seat with a margin-and-cash-flow plan. One hundred seventy-five days later the company agreed to sell itself for $48.7 billion.
265.2 Million Views, With Subtitles
Netflix agreed to buy Warner Bros. for $82.7 billion. The content operation it lands on - nearly a billion viewers in 50 languages - is Bela Bajaria's.
Nineteen Days, Then the Founder Left
Nikesh Arora bet $25 billion on identity security, then $3.35 billion on observability. Nine months on, Palo Alto Networks posted a $183 million operating loss.
Twenty-Two Million on Three Point Three Billion
Temple Health earned $22 million on $3.3 billion, then warned of a $90 million Medicaid hit. Abhi Rastogi took the CEO seat weeks later.
The Half She Chose
Flex's board approved a spin-off on May 5. Revathi Advaithi will not stay with the $27.9 billion manufacturer she has led since 2019. She takes the new company instead.
The Call He Made at the Bottom
Micron lost $5.83 billion in fiscal 2023 and was shut out of China's critical infrastructure. Three years later Sanjay Mehrotra's company earned $28.2 billion in a single quarter.
One Hundred and Six Days to the Withdrawal
Raj Subramaniam pulled FedEx's earnings forecast fifteen weeks into the job. Four years on, he has spun off the freight business and moved the fiscal year off May.
Nine Months From Acquisition to CEO
Sridhar Ramaswamy's search engine could not beat Google. Snowflake bought the team for its AI - then, nine months later, made him chief executive.
Eighteen Years, No Successor Named
On his 100th earnings call, Shantanu Narayen told investors he will leave Adobe's top job - but only once a successor is found, and none has been named.
The Physician in Anthropic's Boardroom
Vas Narasimhan runs Novartis, a top-five drugmaker facing a patent cliff. In April he took a board seat at Anthropic - betting AI's fastest payoff is in medicine.
The Chief Executive in Waiting
Sempra picked Bhavesh Patel, a former LyondellBasell chief, to run Sempra Infrastructure - but only once a KKR-led consortium closes its $9.99 billion takeover, expected by the third quarter.
The First New Pain Class in Twenty Years
Vertex spent over a decade discovering a non-opioid painkiller. The hard part is what comes next: Reshma Kewalramani must sell JOURNAVX against cheap opioids and cautious insurers.
Two Titles in Seven Months
Procter & Gamble made Shailesh Jejurikar chief executive in January. Seven months later the board gave him the chairmanship and retired his predecessor - a fast consolidation of power.
One Seat, Then Both
Gunjan Kedia ran U.S. Bancorp for a year with her predecessor as executive chairman. In April, the $692 billion bank hands her the board too.
Four Jobs in Three Years
Ravi Thanawala ran finance for an $18 billion Nike division, then held four jobs in three years at Papa John's. American Eagle just handed him the books.
The Twelve-Year Apprenticeship
Venkat Kavarthapu spent twelve years building Edifecs' products before taking the founder's chair, scaling it, and selling it. Now symplr's owners want him to do it again.