ITV boss Carolyn McCall poaches former easyJet CFO from Micro Focus

ITV has poached the finance boss of fellow FTSE 100 company Micro Focus, reuniting chief executive Carolyn McCall with a former easyJet colleague.

Chris Kennedy, who was previously chief financial officer at easyJet between 2010 and 2015, will join the broadcaster in February 2019.

Ms McCall said: “I am really pleased to be working with Chris again as CFO. He will play a huge role in helping us deliver our new More Than TV strategy and I know he will work really well with the senior leadership team of ITV.”

Mr Kennedy succeeds incumbent CFO Ian Griffiths, who announced his decision to retire earlier this year.

Prior to joining Micro Focus, Mr Kennedy was CFO at Arm Holdings before its £24 billion sale to Softbank. Before that he spent 17 years at EMI Music across various roles.

He joins as ITV pursues a fresh cost-cutting drive that will see it save up to £40 million by 2021 amid weak ad revenue growth.

Meanwhile, Micro Focus appointed a replacement chief financial officer and said revenues are on course to be at the higher end of expectations this year.

Brian McArthur-Muscroft, former finance chief of Paysafe Group and TeleCity, will join the company early next year.

“I’m looking forward to working with Brian,” said Micro Focus chief executive Stephen Murdoch.

“He brings us a highly relevant mix of operational experience together with a history of delivering significant value creation.”

Micro Focus said it was trading in line with the board’s expectations. Revenues in constant currency are expected to be at the better end of expectations, declining between 6% and 9%.

The company also said it would extend a share buyback programme launched in August, taking the combined total value to as much as 400 million US dollars (£307 million) including those shares already purchased.