Smiths Group makes several executive changes

Smiths Group announced on Thursday that Clare Scherrer has been appointed chief financial officer, taking up the role from 29 April.

The FTSE 100 company said she would also join its board of directors.

Scherrer previously worked for Goldman Sachs, where she spent more than 25 years and was a partner for more than a decade, and was most recently co-head of its global industrials business.

Smiths said she had “extensive experience” working with a range of industrial companies globally, accelerating growth and increasing value.

Scherrer had “particularly relevant” experience in the technology sectors in which Smiths had strong positions, including energy, safety and security, and aerospace.

The company said she had been a close advisor to Smiths for the last seven years, including advising on the sale of Smiths Medical as well as developing its new strategy announced in November.

Before Goldman Sachs, Clare was a consultant at McKinsey & Company.

She holds a Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University and an MBA from the Harvard Business School, and would continue to be based in London.

By mutual agreement, John Shipsey would step down as chief financial officer and from the board from 29 April.

However, he would remain with Smiths until the end of the 2022 financial year, to ensure a smooth transition of Smiths' finance team and continued strong performance.

Smiths also announced the appointment of Bernard Cicut as president of John Crane, effective 18 April, replacing Jean Vernet.

Cicut was joining John Crane from 3M where, over more than 30 years, he held a number of senior leadership roles across multiple industrial technology businesses, leading “significant change”.

Most recently, he was president of 3M's $4.5Bbn (£3.43bn) personal safety division, leading rapid growth and a four-fold increase in global respirator supply amid the fight against Covid-19.

Other key roles included managing director of 3M's operations in central Europe, the Middle East and Africa; managing director of 3M Mexico; managing director of 3M France; and CFO of the 3M-Sumitomo partnership.

Cicut has “deep global experience” in sales and marketing, operations, new product development, and lean six sigma, all of which were “central” to John Crane, the board said.

He would also be based in London.

Vera Kirikova, meanwhile, had been appointed as chief people officer, effective 18 April and replacing Sheena Mackay.

Most recently, Kirikova was chief people officer at Rio Tinto from 2016 to 2021, and before that, she spent 22 years at Schlumberger in a number of roles in human resources and

Operations.

Kirikova has “deep experience” leading talent development and cultural transformation in large global businesses, with the board saying her background was “ideally suited” to bolstering Smiths Group's accelerating growth.

She would be based in London.

Finally, Smiths Group announced that the group head of strategy would become an executive committee role.

As a result, Diana Houghton - who had served in the role since 2019, worked for the group since 2013, and played a “key role” in developing its growth strategy - would join the executive committee with immediate effect.

“At our capital markets event in November, we laid out a plan to accelerate growth at Smiths and deliver on our significant potential,” said chief executive officer Paul Keel.

“We're now seeing multiple examples of this such as the earlier than expected close of the Medical sale, ramp-up in new product activity, and first half results which delivered 3.4% organic revenue growth.

“Today's announcement further builds on our momentum.”

At 0932 BST, shares in Smiths Group were down 1.67% at 1,413p.