Appen chief financial officer Helen Johnson departs after just two months

Once the ASX’s strongest performer, the emerging AI firm has suffered a fresh blow as its share price continues to flounder.

Shares in beleaguered AI specialist Appen have tumbled after its chief financial officer departed after just two months, as the company struggles to translate rampant interest in ChatGPT and generative artificial intelligence technologies into revenue growth.

Once the strongest performer on the ASX, the Sydney-based Appen has suffered a torrid year and multiple earnings downgrades. In May, it flagged revenue would decline materially, with new chief executive Armughan Ahmad announcing a strategy refresh and a $US46m cost reduction program, including the culling of 300 of its 1500 employees.

On Monday, Appen announced its CFO Helen Johnson, a former veteran executive at North American IT giant Insight Enterprises who joined the company less than two months ago, would be leaving in July due to personal reasons.

“Appen has commenced an immediate search for a new CFO to succeed Helen. As part of the transition, Appen is promoting Justin Miles to Deputy CFO,” the company’s board said in a statement.

“Justin is a seasoned finance leader who has been with Appen since 2016, and will continue to support the team during the transition. Kevin Levine, Appen’s former CFO, will be available to the business in an advisory capacity until September 1, 2023.

“As a global leader pioneering deep learning and AI advancements for over two decades, Appen is at an exciting place in its history and remains in a sound financial position.”

Appen has struggled to capitalise on rampant interest in new innovations like ChatGPT. Picture: Olivier Morin/AFP

Appen CEO Armughan Ahmad, who is based in Toronto, told The Australian on Monday that Ms Johnson’s departure was related to family issues.

“We hired Helen and we had a very clear agreement with her that she was going to move from Arizona to Toronto and because of some family issues, she was not going to be able to make the move,” he said. “So we respect her decision. And so there was nothing untoward in terms of, you know, issues or anything to do with Appen or anything to do with financials. There’s none of that.

“Unfortunately, or fortunately, life happens and when life happens, you know, we have to take the high road and make sure that we support the team member and I know a lot of times when people say personal reasons it’s codeword for something, but not here.”

Shares in Appen fell 11 per cent on Monday to $2.31 and are down 62 per cent over the past year.

At the time of Ms Johnson’s appointment, Mr Ahmad described the executive as a ‘tremendous asset’ to the company.

“Helen will be instrumental in helping us accelerate our shift towards an AI platform business model,” Appen CEO Armughan Ahmad said at the time.

“Helen’s experience operating in complex global environments and proven track record of profitable business growth, prudent financial controls and building winning teams will be a tremendous asset to Appen.”

Appen’s business model is built around its crowd of more than 1 million people who earn money by training AI, through completing tasks like performing web searches and evaluating the quality of the responses, to more complex jobs like taking photos of all the electric vehicle charging stations across a city to help map their locations. Its clients include Google, Amazon and Microsoft.

Mr Ahmad is a former KPMG and Dell executive and took the top job at Appen last December after the resignation of former CEO Mark Brayan.

Ms Johnson’s departure is the latest executive shuffle for the company, which appointed a new chief technology officer, former Amazon executive Saty Bahadur, in March, as well as a new chief revenue officer and chief marketing officer.

“Our second half is going to be better than our first half, that’s the guidance we have provided,” Mr Ahmad said on Monday. “I really see that this is a long-term play for me and for our leadership team, and our shareholders and investors. We recently did an equity raise and you can see the kind of institutional investors who have backed us, and now we are just working on executing, so we have our heads down and we’re going to execute.”