Good morning. As a new hire, you never truly know a company’s culture until you experience it firsthand. For Boeing CFO Jay Malave, it has been a little over three months—and he is ready to offer an evaluation.
After a series of aircraft malfunctions, management challenges, and a strike by more than 33,000 machinists in 2024, Boeing has seen significant changes in its executive leadership over the past year. Malave began his tenure as EVP and CFO on Aug. 15, succeeding Brian West, who served as finance chief for four years. Kelly Ortberg became Boeing’s president and CEO in August 2024.
Speaking Tuesday at the UBS Global Industrials and Transportation Conference, Malave said that, by the time he joined the company, he was already benefiting from culture changes Ortberg had put in motion.
“What I’ve seen is a really engaged workforce, a very strong management team—one that has a can-do attitude,” Malave said. Management is focused on improvement and making Boeing better every day, he said. “To me, that is incredibly important, because that’s a sign of a performance culture, and that’s one of the things you look for when you join a company,” Malave said. “You can never really tell from the outside looking in what it’s actually like working in the company.”
He described “active management” as a leadership team that is “willing to roll up its sleeves, get its hands dirty, help solve problems, and be part of the solutions—and that’s exactly what I see here at Boeing,” he said. “I’m that type of person who likes to get into the details, to focus on how we solve a problem rather than just observing it. From my perspective, I’ve been able to transition pretty easily into an environment like that.”
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At Boeing (No. 63 on the Fortune 500), Malave leads the finance organization, as well as strategy, business planning, and global real estate, and he serves on the company’s executive council. He was most recently CFO of Lockheed Martin and previously held senior finance roles at L3Harris Technologies. He also spent more than 20 years at United Technologies (UTC), including serving as CFO of Carrier Corporation when it was a UTC division.
Boeing’s path back to positive cash flow
During the conversation, Malave also sketched out a financial reset for Boeing. He expects the company to move back into positive free cash flow in 2026 in the low single-digit billions. This is dependent upon ramping up production of the 737 Max and 787 Dreamliner and working through its stockpile of undelivered jets.
Malave described next year as the start of rebuilding toward Boeing’s long-standing $10 billion annual cash-generation target, with higher production rates key toward that ambition. The outlook marks a sharp improvement from roughly $2 billion in expected free cash outflow in 2025, and his comments helped lift Boeing shares by nearly 10% on Tuesday.
Risk, opportunity—and no ‘grenades’ for BDS
In July, Boeing veteran Stephen Parker was appointed president and CEO of its Defense, Space & Security (BDS) business, after serving as interim leader since September 2024. Malave is temporarily separated from BDS because of his recent role at Lockheed Martin, and Boeing has formally agreed he will not take part in BDS activities until the end of the year to avoid potential conflicts of interest with his former employer.
Malave stressed that he does not plan to disrupt the BDS portfolio once he is able to engage there. “I think there’s been some investor angst in terms of, once Jay Malave gets access to the BDS program, there’s going to be a bunch of grenades that go off on all these programs,” he said. “I’m there to learn.” He added, “In any program, there’s going to be risk, there’s going to be opportunities. My job will be: How can I help them mitigate risk, and how can I help them realize opportunities? I’m not going in there with a mandate or an agenda to throw grenades at different programs.”
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SherylEstrada sheryl.estrada@fortune.com
Leaderboard
Michele Allen was appointed CFO of Jersey Mike’s Subs, a franchisor of fast-casual sandwich shops, effective Dec. 1. Allen succeeds Walter Tombs, who is retiring from Jersey Mike’s in January after 26 years with the company. Allen brings more than 25 years of financial leadership experience. Most recently, she served as CFO and head of strategy at Wyndham Hotels & Resorts. Allen began her career with Deloitte as an auditor.
Jessica Ross was appointed CFO of GitLab Inc. (Nasdaq: GTLB), a DevSecOps platform, effective Jan. 15. Ross joins the company from Frontdoor, where she served as CFO. She has more than 25 years of experience in finance, accounting, and operational leadership at companies like Salesforce and Stitch Fix, and spent 12 years in public accounting at Arthur Andersen and Deloitte.
Big Deal
Adobe has released online shopping data for the 2025 holiday season covering Cyber Week, the five-day shopping period from Thanksgiving through Black Friday and Cyber Monday. Consumers spent a total of $14.25 billion online on Cyber Monday, up 7.1% year over year and above Adobe’s initial projection of $14.2 billion (up 6.3% year over year). During the peak hours of 8 to 10 p.m., consumers spent $16 million every minute, according to Adobe.
Usage of the buy now, pay later payment method hit an all-time high on Cyber Monday, driving $1.03 billion in online spend (up 4.2% year over year), according to the data. Adobe also found that on Cyber Monday, AI-driven traffic to U.S. retail sites (measured by shoppers clicking on a link) increased by 670% compared with last year.
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Courtesy of Adobe
Going deeper
“Anthropic is all in on ‘AI safety’—and that’s helping the $183 billion startup win over big business” is a new Fortunefeature by Jeremy Kahn.
Kahn writes: “Anthropic has emerged as one of the leading rivals to OpenAI and Google in the race to build ever-more-capable artificial intelligence. And while Anthropic and its Claude family of AI models don’t have quite the same brand recognition as crosstown rival OpenAI and its ChatGPT products, over the past year Claude has quietly emerged as the model that businesses seem to like best. Anthropic, currently valued at $183 billion, has by some metrics pulled ahead of its larger rivals, OpenAI and Google, in enterprise usage.” You can read the complete article here.
Overheard
“Today’s AI-ready employee brings more than technical skills — they work smarter, feel more fulfilled, and contribute more effectively.”
—Sarah Hoffman, director of AI Thought Leadership at AlphaSense, writes in a Fortune opinion piece.
Cornell University administrator Warren Petrofsky will serve as the Faculty of Arts and Sciences’ new dean of administration and finance, charged with spearheading efforts to shore up the school’s finances as it faces a hefty budget deficit.
Petrofsky’s appointment, announced in a Friday email from FAS Dean Hopi E. Hoekstra to FAS affiliates, will begin April 20 — nearly a year after former FAS dean of administration and finance Scott A. Jordan stepped down. Petrofsky will replace interim dean Mary Ann Bradley, who helped shape the early stages of FAS cost-cutting initiatives.
Petrofsky currently serves as associate dean of administration at Cornell University’s College of Arts and Sciences.
As dean, he oversaw a budget cut of nearly $11 million to the institution’s College of Arts and Sciences after the federal government slashed at least $250 million in stop-work orders and frozen grants, according to the Cornell Daily Sun.
He also serves on a work group established in November 2025 to streamline the school’s administrative systems.
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Earlier, at the University of Pennsylvania, Petrofsky managed capital initiatives and organizational redesigns in a number of administrative roles.
Petrofsky is poised to lead similar efforts at the FAS, which relaunched its Resources Committee in spring 2025 and created a committee to consolidate staff positions amid massive federal funding cuts.
As part of its planning process, the committee has quietly brought on external help. Over several months, consultants from McKinsey & Company have been interviewing dozens of administrators and staff across the FAS.
Petrofsky will also likely have a hand in other cost-cutting measures across the FAS, which is facing a $365 million budget deficit. The school has already announced it will keep spending flat for the 2026 fiscal year, and it has dramatically reduced Ph.D. admissions.
In her email, Hoekstra praised Petrofsky’s performance across his career.
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“Warren has emphasized transparency, clarity in communication, and investment in staff development,” she wrote. “He approaches change with steadiness and purpose, and with deep respect for the mission that unites our faculty, researchers, staff, and students. I am confident that he will be a strong partner to me and to our community.”
—Staff writer Amann S. Mahajan can be reached at [email protected] and on Signal at amannsm.38. Follow her on X @amannmahajan.
My spreadsheet reviewed a WalletHub ranking of financial distress for the residents of 100 U.S. cities, including 17 in California. The analysis compared local credit scores, late bill payments, bankruptcy filings and online searches for debt or loans to quantify where individuals had the largest money challenges.
When California cities were divided into three geographic regions – Southern California, the Bay Area, and anything inland – the most challenges were often found far from the coast.
The average national ranking of the six inland cities was 39th worst for distress, the most troubled grade among the state’s slices.
Bakersfield received the inland region’s worst score, ranking No. 24 highest nationally for financial distress. That was followed by Sacramento (30th), San Bernardino (39th), Stockton (43rd), Fresno (45th), and Riverside (52nd).
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Southern California’s seven cities overall fared better, with an average national ranking of 56th largest financial problems.
However, Los Angeles had the state’s ugliest grade, ranking fifth-worst nationally for monetary distress. Then came San Diego at 22nd-worst, then Long Beach (48th), Irvine (70th), Anaheim (71st), Santa Ana (85th), and Chula Vista (89th).
Monetary challenges were limited in the Bay Area. Its four cities average rank was 69th worst nationally.
San Jose had the region’s most distressed finances, with a No. 50 worst ranking. That was followed by Oakland (69th), San Francisco (72nd), and Fremont (83rd).
The results remind us that inland California’s affordability – it’s home to the state’s cheapest housing, for example – doesn’t fully compensate for wages that typically decline the farther one works from the Pacific Ocean.
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A peek inside the scorecard’s grades shows where trouble exists within California.
Credit scores were the lowest inland, with little difference elsewhere. Late payments were also more common inland. Tardy bills were most difficult to find in Northern California.
Bankruptcy problems also were bubbling inland, but grew the slowest in Southern California. And worrisome online searches were more frequent inland, while varying only slightly closer to the Pacific.
Note: Across the state’s 17 cities in the study, the No. 53 average rank is a middle-of-the-pack grade on the 100-city national scale for monetary woes.
Jonathan Lansner is the business columnist for the Southern California News Group. He can be reached at jlansner@scng.com
The up-and-coming fintech scored a pair of fourth-quarter beats.
Diversified fintech Chime Financial(CHYM +12.88%) was playing a satisfying tune to investors on Thursday. The company’s stock flew almost 14% higher that trading session, thanks mostly to a fourth quarter that featured notably higher-than-expected revenue guidance.
Sweet music
Chime published its fourth-quarter and full-year 2025 results just after market close on Wednesday. For the former period, the company’s revenue was $596 million, bettering the same quarter of 2024 by 25%. The company’s strongest revenue stream, payments, rose 17% to $396 million. Its take from platform-related activity rose more precipitously, advancing 47% to $200 million.
Image source: Getty Images.
Meanwhile, Chime’s net loss under generally accepted accounting principles (GAAP) more than doubled. It was $45 million, or $0.12 per share, compared with a fourth-quarter 2024 deficit of $19.6 million.
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On average, analysts tracking the stock were modeling revenue below $578 million and a deeper bottom-line loss of $0.20 per share.
In its earnings release, Chime pointed to the take-up of its Chime Card as a particular catalyst for growth. Regarding the product, the company said, “Among new member cohorts, over half are adopting Chime Card, and those members are putting over 70% of their Chime spend on the product, which earns materially higher take rates compared to debit.”
Today’s Change
(12.88%) $2.72
Current Price
$23.83
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Key Data Points
Market Cap
$7.9B
Day’s Range
$22.30 – $24.63
52wk Range
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$16.17 – $44.94
Volume
562K
Avg Vol
3.3M
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Gross Margin
86.34%
Double-digit growth expected
Chime management proffered revenue and non-GAAP (adjusted) earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization (EBITDA) guidance for full-year 2026. The company expects to post a top line of $627 million to $637 million, which would represent at least 21% growth over the 2024 result. Adjusted EBITDA should be $380 million to $400 million. No net income forecasts were provided in the earnings release.
It isn’t easy to find a niche in the financial industry, which is crowded with companies offering every imaginable type of service to clients. Yet Chime seems to be achieving that, as the Chime Card is clearly a hit among the company’s target demographic of clientele underserved by mainstream banks. This growth stock is definitely worth considering as a buy.
