Alcatel-Lucent’s revolving door: Pesquidoux out as CFO

More shakeup continues at the senior executive level for Alcatel-Lucent, as the company has brought in a new CFO.
The French-U.S. company announced today that Hubert de Pesquidoux has decided to leave his post as CFO to pursue other opportunities. Pesquidoux was also president of the company’s enterprise business. The company said it will replace Pesquidoux with Paul Tufano, a senior executive with 30 years of experience in international finance. Tufano will join the company on Monday and be based in Paris.
Since the $11.4 billion merger between Alcatel SA and Lucent Technologies in 2006, Alcatel-Lucent has not had a profitable quarter and earlier this year replaced its chairman and CEO.
“We are very sad to see Hubert leaving our company,” CEO Ben Verwaayen said in a statement. “He has contributed to strengthening our financial position and developing our enterprise business worldwide.”
Verwaayen said Tufano will be a great asset as the company strives to improve the company’s profitability.
Tufano “is a very well regarded executive in the financial community with a broad knowledge of our industry,” Verwaayen said.
Prior to joining Alcatel-Lucent, Tufano served as CFO and CEO for Solectron Corp. He also has held senior executive posts at Maxtor Corp. and a variety of management position at IBM. He is an economics graduate of St. John’s University in New York and earned a master’s degree in business from Columbia University.
“Despite a challenging environment, the company has great opportunities,” Tufano said in a statement. “I’m very excited and committed to contribute to this success.”
Alcatel-Lucent has suffered seven straight quarters of losses.
For the third quarter, the company posted a loss of $51 million.
In September, Verwaayen replaced Patricia Russo as CEO, and Philippe Camus replaced Serge Tchuruk as chairman.
By the end of the year, Verwaayen said he will unveil a plan to return the world’s largest telecommunications equipment maker to profitability.