NYSE-listed Cummins’ vice president and general counsel Sharon Barner is to become the company’s chief administrative officer (CAO), effective April 2021.
She will succeed Marya Rose, who will be retiring after more than two decades in leadership positions with the technology company.
As CAO, Barner will head up global groups such as legal, compliance, communications, marketing, government relations, facilities, security and Cummins’ global shared services organization. She joined the company as general counsel in 2012 and has since built a team across 11 countries that has been involved in acquisitions, managed complex regulatory matters and implemented a consolidated contract life cycle management platform.
The company describes Barner as a ‘champion of Cummins’ values, particularly diversity and inclusion, and caring’. She implemented a process to consolidate the company’s legal work from more than 200 law firms to 24, with diversity of their staff a key determining factor. The Coca-Cola Company’s global general counsel Bradley Gayton is leading a similar push to boost diversity among the ranks of outside attorneys who work with his company.
Before joining Cummins, Barner was deputy under-secretary of commerce for intellectual property and deputy director of the US Patent and Trademark Office.
‘I am thrilled to have Sharon assume the CAO role,’ Tom Linebarger, chair and CEO of Cummins, says in a statement. ‘Sharon’s execution orientation, steady hand and sage advice, combined with more than 30 years of legal experience in the private and public sector, make her well positioned for CAO.’
Rose joined Cummins in 1997, becoming general counsel in 2001 and CAO in 2011. Before her tenure at the company, she served two Indiana governors and practiced law in Indianapolis.
‘Marya has had an incredible career, and during her more than two decades at Cummins we have benefited greatly from her leadership and unwavering commitment to our values,’ Linebarger says. ‘She is a great problem solver and has an incredible command of a wide range of topics. Just as importantly, Marya always works and conducts herself with decisiveness, honesty and courage.’
Ben Maiden
Ben Maiden is the editor-at-large of Governance Intelligence, an IR Media publication, having joined the company in December 2016. He is based in New York. Ben was previously managing editor of Compliance Reporter, covering regulatory and compliance...
