Shares of Coinstar, the Bellevue operator of the coin-counting kiosks and Redbox movie rental service, fell more than four percent today after CEO Paul Davis unexpectedly announced plans to retire on March 31. The company named J. Scot Di Valero, the current CFO, as the CEO. Galen Smith, the 36-year-old senior vice president of finance at Redbox, will take over the chief financial officer position.
Di Valerio will earn a base salary of $750,000, and be eligible for additional bonuses. He has served as CFO since 2010, and previously worked in executive roles at Lenovo and Microsoft, the latter of which where he served as corporate vice president of the company’s OEM division. The 50-year-old executive also previous worked at PricewaterhouseCoopers and Mindwave Software.
The news comes as Coinstar works with Verizon on a new service called Redbox Instant, which competes with Amazon and Netflix by blending online streaming with physical DVD rentals from Redbox kiosks.
Davis, 55, said he was proud of the accomplishments that he had achieved at Coinstar.
“I believe that under Scott’s leadership, Coinstar will continue to expand on its market-leading position and in new venture opportunities to drive future growth and value creation for our shareholders,” he said.
Deborah Bevier, chair of the Coinstar board, added:
“Scott’s appointment as CEO is a direct result of the Board’s long-time focus on developing a deep management team and ensures that Coinstar will continue to benefit from strong leadership following Paul’s retirement. Scott is a proven leader at Coinstar and a seasoned executive with more than 25 years of management, operations and finance experience. Coinstar has a clear and focused growth strategy, and the Board is confident that Scott is the right person to lead the company through its next phase of development.”
