Joby Aviation’s chief financial officer (CFO) Matt Field will depart the electric aircraft developer in favour of a position with Oshkosh Corporation before year’s end.
The aviation start-up confirmed in a 2 December post on networking platform LinkedIn that Field plans on “returning to the Midwest to be closer to his family”.
Wisconsin-based Oshkosh says Field will assume the company’s CFO role starting on 16 December.
Field will serve as an “active advisor” during the transition as Joby seeks to “secure a CFO with experience commercialising novel technologies”.
Field joined Joby after working for Ford Motor Company and helped guide the air taxi maker through becoming a publicly traded company, which was completed in 2021.
”Since then, our team has delivered sector-leading progress on certification and commercialisation, while maintaining the strongest balance sheet in our sector,” Joby says.
Joby held on 30 September $710 million in cash, cash equivalents and short-term investments, down from about $1 billion on 31 December 2023.
But it raised some $222 million in October and expects an additional $500 million investment from Toyota, Field said on 6 November, bringing its “total available balances to approximately $1.4 billion”.
Field’s departure comes during a critical phase for US developers of electric vertical take-off and landing (eVTOL) aircraft. Cash holdings are paramount as the firms progress through costly certification and production programmes. Both Joby and Archer Aviation are pushing to certificate their air taxis with the Federal Aviation Administration as soon as next year, and are seeking to bolster their balance sheets ahead of planned commercial operations.
Joby and Archer have been enjoying surging stock prices in recent weeks, with some Wall Street analysts taking more optimistic views of the burgeoning eVTOL sector after the FAA in October established a new class of “powered lift” aircraft to enable commercial air taxis in the USA.
CERTIFICATIONS SECURED
Joby on 3 December said it received from the FAA a Part 141 certificate, allowing it to establish a flight academy and develop a pipeline of eVTOL pilots.
”Future aviators will be able to enrol in Joby Aviation Academy’s full complement of courses, which will include private pilot, instrument rating, commercial pilot and certified flight instructor, in preparation for a career at Joby or other air operators,” the start-up says.
The Santa Cruz-headquartered company’s voluntary safety management system also received FAA approval, ”years before it becomes mandatory”.
