Flex appoints 20-year company alum as interim CFO

Dive Brief:

Jaime Martinez, the SVP of finance for the reliability group at electronic manufacturing service provider Flex, will step in as its interim CFO, after the departure of finance chief Paul Lundstrom effective July 31, the company announced in a Wednesday securities filing.
Martinez, a 20-year alum of the Austin, Texas-based company, will assume the interim CFO seat effective Aug. 1, according to the filing. Flex has begun an executive search process to find a permanent successor, and Lundstrom will assist in the “orderly transition” of his responsibilities to Martinez, according to a press release. Flex provides manufacturing and design services for industries including the cloud, industrial and automotive fields, according to its website, including semiconductor and robotics manufacturing.
Also Wednesday, Flex announced results for its first quarter of fiscal 2025, reporting GAAP net income attributable to the company of $139 million. It also reported $6.3 billion in net sales compared to $6.8 billion in the prior year period. Gross profit also saw a slight dip to $471 million for the quarter ended June 28 compared to $476 million for the prior year period.

Dive Insight:

Martinez, 47, has served in his current role since March 2023, and has held a variety of executive and financial roles at Flex during his 20-year tenure at the company, according to the filing. Previous roles include acting as SVP of corporate FP&A, as well as a two-year stint as VP of corporate FP&A, according to his LinkedIn profile.

There are no arrangements between Martinez and Flex which would require disclosure pursuant to Item 404(a) of Regulation S-K, Flex said, except that his wife Elena Velasco is also employed by the company as a senior director of accounting. Velasco earned about $221,173 in total compensation for fiscal 2024 including salary, bonus and share awards, according to the filing. Martinez’s compensation was not disclosed.

Flex did not respond to requests for comment surrounding Martinez’s pay or if he will be receiving a raise or bonus in association with his appointment as interim CFO.

Martinez will take on the role as Flex looks to execute on a restructuring plan it announced several months ago aimed to “improve operational efficiencies,” the company said in a May filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. Flex anticipated it would see charges between $75 million to $125 million for the first three quarters of its fiscal 2025 year related to the restructuring plan, which includes “reducing excess workforce capacity and optimizing the Company’s manufacturing,” according to the May filing.

For the three-month period ended June 28, 2024, Flex reported restructuring charges of about $25 million, the majority of which related to employee severance, according to its earnings results.

Lundstrom meanwhile, who held the electronic designer’s top finance seat for three years, is departing to take on the CFO role at HVAC and industrial compression solutions provider Copeland, according to a Wednesday press release.

Lundstrom — whose previous roles also include serving as VP and CFO for Aerojet Rocketdyne and VP, investor relations for United Technologies, according to his LinkedIn — will join the St. Louis, Missouri-based company in August, according to the release. He played an essential role during the separation and subsequent initial public offering of Nextracker from Flex in 2023, Copeland said in the release.

A provider of software solutions for solar technology projects, Nextracker raised $638 million in an outsized IPO last February, Reuters reported at the time, granting it a valuation of over $3.5 billion. The company completed its spinoff from Flex on Feb. 2 of this year, according to a press release.