GlobalFoundries finance chief John Hollister departs, Sam Franklin named interim CFO

(Reuters) -GlobalFoundries' John Hollister has stepped down from the CFO position and will be succeeded by Sam Franklin on an interim basis, the contract chipmaker said on Monday. The management reshuffle comes at a time when the company has pledged to invest $16 billion partly towards building more manufacturing facilities on American soil amid U.S. President Donald Trump's push to onshore supply chains. The company, unlike leader TSMC, does not largely produce cutting-edge artificial intelligence chips and is spending heavily on upgrading its manufacturing processes to produce more advanced chips for markets such as automotive and smartphones. While Taiwan's TSMC manufactures the most advanced processors designed by the likes of Nvidia, AMD and Qualcomm, GlobalFoundries produces the chips used alongside them that form an essential part of electronic systems. Hollister, who joined the company as CFO early last year, is leaving due to "personal reasons", GlobalFoundries said, without providing further details. Franklin, who is currently vice president of business finance, operations and investor relations, joined Global Foundries in 2022. He has previously held banking and finance positions across firms including Mubadala, a unit of Abu Dhabi's sovereign wealth fund that is also GlobalFoundries' largest shareholder, according to LSEG data. "While the company determines a permanent successor, we are confident in Sam's ability," CEO Tim Breen said in a statement. "GF (GlobalFoundries) remains focused on our strategic priorities." GlobalFoundries' adjusted gross margin has struggled to break out of the 20-30% range for a large part of the last four years, with analysts citing pricing problems and increased competitive pressure. The company is expected to report a drop of about 4% in quarterly revenue to $1.68 billion on November 12, according to data compiled by LSEG. Its profit is expected to fall 8% to $165.4 million. (Reporting by Arsheeya Bajwa; Editing by Anil D'Silva)

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