Scott Topping has left his position as chief financial officer for Hawaiian Airlines.
The state’s largest carrier said Wednesday that he has been replaced on an interim basis by Shannon Okinaka, who had served as vice president-controller since 2011.
"Shannon has held positions of increasing responsibility since she joined our company in 2005 and we look forward to her leadership in this important position," said Mark Dunkerley, Hawaiian Airlines president and chief executive officer. "We appreciate Scott’s significant contributions to our company over the last three years and we wish him well. At the same time, we look forward to the contributions Shannon will bring as we execute on our expansion strategy."
Hawaiian spokeswoman Ann Botticelli said she would not elaborate on the announcement and declined to say why or when Topping left and where he went. Topping was still with the company as of Oct. 21 when he was on the company’s third-quarter earnings conference call.
Topping, who joined Hawaiian on Nov. 1, 2011, was the fourth-highest-paid executive at Hawaiian, according to the company’s latest proxy, filed last April. In 2013, Topping received total compensation of $784,848, including a base salary of $330,000. His total compensation trailed only Dunkerley, $2.4 million; Chief Commercial Officer Peter Ingram, $1.1 million; and Chief Administrative Officer Ron Anderson-Lehman, $1 million.
Prior to joining Hawaiian, Topping spent 16 years at Southwest Airlines, which included serving as Southwest’s vice president-treasurer from 2006-2011 where he was responsible for managing treasury operations, capital markets, risk management and fleet planning.
Okinaka joined Hawaiian as a senior director in charge of Sarbanes-Oxley compliance and special projects. Prior to joining the airline, she worked for Hawaiian Electric Co. and Coopers & Lybrand/PricewaterhouseCoopers. The Hilo native holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Hawaii at Manoa.
