Nike's incoming finance chief will take the accounting officer's chair as well, eighteen days after he starts the first job

Johanna Nielsen told Nike on 4 August that she was leaving.

The company reported it on Monday afternoon, in a filing that runs to four paragraphs and carries no exhibit. Nielsen is Vice President, Chief Accounting Officer and Corporate Controller, and her resignation takes effect on 4 September. The filing says she is going to pursue another opportunity, and it adds the sentence that the securities rules effectively require in this situation: her departure is not the result of any disagreement with the company relating to its operations, policies or practices.

The interesting part is who picks up the work.

Two jobs, one person, from the same Friday

David Denton becomes Nike's Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer on 17 August. Nike disclosed that appointment, and the pay that goes with it, in a separate filing on 23 June.

As of 4 September he also becomes Interim Corporate Controller, and Nike designates him as the company's principal accounting officer. That is the title that matters in a filing, because the principal accounting officer is the person whose signature stands behind the reported figures. He holds it until the board appoints a successor.

Count the days between the two dates and the answer is eighteen.

What the filing says about the terms

Denton's compensation is not being adjusted for the second role. Nike states that plainly, and it states equally plainly that there are no arrangements or understandings between Denton and any other person under which he was appointed to it.

No date is given for a permanent controller. The filing does not say whether Nike is searching internally or externally, and it names nobody. The document was signed by Robert Leinwand, the company's chief legal officer.

Nike's chief financial officer will be three weeks into that job when the accounting officer's seat lands on his desk as well.