Police equipment-maker Wrap taps new CFO

Dive Brief:

Wrap Technologies, a maker of equipment for law enforcement agencies, named veteran finance executive Chris DeAlmeida, as its new CFO, the company announced Monday.
The Tempe, Ariz.-based company’s new finance chief pick will succeed Jim Barnes, who is is retiring after about six years in the CFO seat. Barnes co-founded the company and was at the finance helm when it went public in 2017, according to his LinkedIn account.
DeAlmeida is joining following a C-suite shakeup earlier this year. Wrap CEO TJ Kennedy said in a statement that the company’s executive leadership is making “key decisions on our future strategic road map” and cited DeAlmeida’s broad and “significant CFO” experience, including his work completing over 15 merger and acquisition (M&A) transactions.

Dive Insight:

Wrap’s main products include virtual reality training platforms for police as well as a remote restraint device called the BolaWrap which discharges a tether to provide an alternative means of restraining individuals. “As communities continue to ask for more compassionate and safe policing practices, BolaWrap is rapidly gaining worldwide awareness,” the company stated in a March 10 filing. The market for its segment of “non-lethal” products is expected to grow to $16.1 billion by 2027, the filing states.

The company has also been under financial pressure as some police departments have been slow to adopt the wrap product and the virtual-reality training faces stiff competition, according to a Seeking Alpha report last year. The company reported a net loss of $5.4 million in the first quarter, roughly in line with the year earlier.

But Kennedy in a May statement said the company was “building momentum,” noting there are over 750 agencies with the wrap devices and that it has delivered products to 53 countries. He also said his own appointment as well as the naming of Kevin Mullins as president earlier this year signals a new phase of growth for the company and stated that the company was “assessing all facets of its business to determine what is working well and where we can improve” over the next 90 days.

DeAlmeida, who early in his career was a financial analyst for BMC Software, is a four-time CFO, most recently at the Houston-based marine infrastructure firm Encore Dredging Partners, according to his LinkedIn account. At Encore, DeAlmeida completed two acquisitions and developed advanced reporting and forecasting tools to drive growth, according to Wrap’s announcement. Prior to that he was executive vice president and CFO of Orion Group Holdings, a Houston-based specialty construction company, for 11 years through November 2018.