Blackboard General Counsel to Serve as Interim Chief Financial Officer
Blackboard chief legal officer and general counsel Stuart Kupinsky will be taking over as the interim chief financial officer later this month until a replacement is found.
June 07, 2019 at 03:48 PM
2 minute read
Stuart Kupinsky, general counsel, chief legal officer of Blackboard, Photo: Yossi May
The Washington, D.C.-based educational company Blackboard Inc. announced Friday that its chief financial officer will be resigning and the company's top lawyer will serve as the CFO in the interim.
Rick Essex will be leaving Blackboard on June 28 and chief legal officer and general counsel Stuart Kupinsky will be taking over as the interim CFO until a replacement is found. The replacement will be based out of the company's future headquarters in Reston, Virginia.
Bill Ballhaus, Blackboard's president and CEO, said in the press release that Essex will work in Boston at Providence Equity Partners LLC, the majority owner of Blackboard.
“Over the past 15 months, Rick has been an invaluable member of the executive team at Blackboard and we greatly appreciate his dedication and contributions to the company,” Ballhaus said.
Kupinsky was not immediately available for comment.
Kupinsky joined Blackboard as the senior vice president and general counsel in 2015, according to his LinkedIn profile. He previously worked as the chief counsel at FirstNet and as the general counsel of Tekelec Inc. Kupinsky graduated from the George Washington University Law School in 1992.
There is a growing trend of having in-house legal leaders step into additional executive roles when a vacancy opens. In those situations, however, the general counsel or chief legal officer stepped into the role of interim CEO.
Mike Evers, the founder and principal of Evers Legal Search Inc., said it is not something he sees on a regular basis. He also said it would be rare for a general counsel to take on the CFO role in addition to their legal duties.
“They are two full-time important jobs and having one person do both of those jobs doesn't strike me as sustainable in the long term,” Evers said.
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