GE Healthcare CFO steps down after three-year tenure

Dive Brief:

• GE Healthcare announced that beginning Aug. 14, Chief Accounting Officer and Controller George Newcomb will serve as interim CFO, replacing Jay Saccaro, who said he will leave the company for a job outside the medical technology industry, according to a Thursday press release and securities filing.
• The Chicago-based healthcare and medical tech provider on Thursday also released preliminary results for its second quarter, reporting revenue growth of 3.5% year-over-year and reaffirming its full-year guidance, according to the press release.
• “On behalf of the Board of Directors and executive team, I would like to thank Jay for his contributions over the past three years,” GE Healthcare President and CEO Peter Arduini said in a statement. “He has played a key role in driving financial discipline and strategic investments aligned to our capital allocation strategy. We wish him success in his next endeavor.”

Dive Insight:

Saccaro joined GE Healthcare in 2023 when the company spun off from the wider General Electric business. Before GE Healthcare, which provides digital infrastructure and data analytics tech for health services, he served for nine years as CFO for Baxter International Healthcare, according to his LinkedIn profile.

Saccaro will work with Newcomb to ensure a smooth transition, GE Healthcare said in the press release. The company has started a search for a permanent CFO.

Interim successor Newcomb, a long-time company employee, served as general controller for GE’s healthcare business beginning in February 2016, according to the filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. He was named in his current role as controller and CAO at GE Healthcare in 2023, in association with its spinoff from GE, according to the filing.

Over a multi-decade tenure, his past roles have included key financial leadership positions, including CFO roles at GE Capital Equipment Finance and GE Capital Healthcare Financial Services. Before joining GE in 1996, he served as a senior tax manager at Arthur Andersen.

There are no changes to Newcomb’s compensation arrangements in association with his appointment as interim finance chief, GE Healthcare said in the filing.

The business did not detail Newcomb’s compensation in its most recent proxy. As CFO, Sacarro’s compensation for the full-year 2025 totaled about $5 million, including an $890,415 base salary, $909,000 in non-equity incentive compensation and about $3 million in stock awards, according to the proxy filed March 19.

The CFO transition comes as the business continues to navigate rising costs in critical areas, including freight and key components for its products. Input costs for certain areas “changed significantly” throughout GE Healthcare’s first quarter, Arduini said during its Q1 earnings call in April, impacting the business’ profit guidance and cost mitigation strategy.

For example, GE Healthcare saw an approximate $100 million jump in the cost for computer memory chips, “critical components” in many of its products, Arduini said. The CEO also flagged an increase in oil and freight expenses of about $100 million and noted that other inflationary impacts — such as those related to metals such as tungsten — are expected to total about $50 million.

“We expect to offset more than half of the inflation impact in 2026 with price and cost actions,” Arduini said, noting the company is taking a “prudent view” of these costs by cutting its full-year adjusted earnings per share guidance by 15 cents.

On Thursday, GE Healthcare reaffirmed its previously issued full-year guidance, which includes earnings per share in a range between $4.80 to $5.00, according to its first quarter earnings report. That range represents year-over-year growth between 4.6% to 9.0%, GE Healthcare said.

While announcing its CFO transition, the healthcare company on Thursday also released preliminary, unaudited results for its second quarter. For the quarter ended June 30, GE Healthcare expects organic revenue of about $5.1 billion, a 3.5% jump from the prior year period, according to its Thursday release.

The company is set to report its Q2 earnings on July 29, according to a press release.