The Goodyear Tire & Rubber Co. has appointed Darren Wells its senior vice president of finance and strategy, and Damon Audia has been named vice president and treasurer, replacing Wells.
Wells, 41, previously served as senior vice president, business development and treasurer.
His appointment follows the announcement that Chief Financial Officer Richard Kramer has been named president of the company's North American Tire business unit (see related Web item).
Wells assumes Kramer's former responsibility for the company's overall strategy development. In addition, Wells retains his finance responsibilities, which include treasury, investor relations, business development and tax.
Audia now has responsibility for the company's capital markets, banking, risk management and benefits financing activities.
"Darren has been pivotal in the finance team's design and execution of
Goodyear's complex refinancing and capital structure improvement over
the past four years," said Keegan. "That allowed the company time to
successfully implement critical elements of its strategy."
Keegan added that Wells' accomplishments under such a challenging set of circumstances established his considerable strategic skills and makes him well suited to work directly with him to help Goodyear develop its future strategy.
"Damon was instrumental in the execution of the plans to refinance the
company and his experiences with Goodyear and previously at Delphi
provide him an ideal base for our company's requirements," Keegan said. "He's had extensive experience in executing complex transactions for multi-national companies."
Wells joined Goodyear in August of 2002 as vice president and treasurer. In May 2005 he was named senior vice president of business development and treasurer. Prior to Goodyear he served two years as
assistant treasurer of Visteon Corporation, assisting with the spin-off from Ford Motor Co. He worked for Ford from 1989
until joining Visteon in a variety of assignments including finance
director for Ford Credit, Australia.
Audia, 36, joined Goodyear as assistant treasurer, capital markets in
December 2004 from Delphi Corp., where he served in a variety of
treasury and financial roles.
