Spring has begun in Minnesota, and Minneapolis software firm Code42 has caught the first big fish.
Jason Bristow, vice president and treasurer of Amazon.com Inc., will become the new chief financial officer of Code42, which makes backup and file-synchronizing software.
In other words, Bristow has chosen to leave his spot as the No. 2 financial guy at Amazon, the company known as the "Everything Store" with 117,300 employees that's a household name, to become the No. 1 financial guy at Code42, a 400-employee firm that is not a household word, even in the Twin Cities.
The question is why.
Bristow, a 1991 graduate of Eden Prairie High School, says it's about opportunity, a good fit between him and the company and a chance to move back home. And he can be more influential at a smaller, rapidly growing company.
"Amazon still has tremendous growth prospects, so it's not like I'm leaving a stagnant old company to join a young start-up," said Bristow, 40. "Code42 is at a different point in its life cycle, and, in some respects, there's a chance to build something here. At Amazon, there's less opportunity to drive change from the grass roots."
Bristow has been at Amazon since 2003 and, in his first few years, oversaw its balance sheet transformation from debt-laden to cash-rich.
Matthew Dornquast, the CEO and co-founder of 13-year-old Code42, said Bristow is the right CFO for a private company the size of Code42, which he said had $40 million in revenue last year. The previous CFO, Susan Dub, has left the company after doing "a fantastic job to get us to the stage we're at now."