The Front Office

Scouting report · CXT

Aaron W. Saak

  • President & CEO; director, CXT since 2022-10src

Crane NXT's first CEO; ran Vontier's Gilbarco Veeder-Root before that

—thin record

Not ranked yet

Scouting sheet

as of 24 Sep 2026
Delivers guidance—no promises on the record yet
Answers the question—no call reviewed yet
Capital allocation—company not reviewed yet
Pay design67revenue, operating income, fcf, relative tsr, time only · 98.3% for · 4.75% of net income
Skin in the game—no holding or price on file
Age
52src
In the role
4 yr
Promises scored
0
Hit rate
—
Dodges / 100 answers
—
Airtime on calls
—
Every promise, oldest firstno scored promises yet

What to weigh

Watch 4

  • The 2025 bonus metrics excluded OpSec Security's revenue, costs and cash flow and the acquisition's corporate costs and interest, and were further adjusted for one-time items, so the bonus did not bear the acquisition's resultssrc
  • Adjusted operating profit, half the bonus weighting, came in below target for 2025 ($335.8m against $354.0m); only the revenue beat lifted payout to 93.7%src
  • The 2023-2025 performance shares paid 83.3% of target: relative TSR ranked at the 44.4th percentile of the S&P MidCap 400 Capital Goods groupsrc
  • GAAP net income fell from $188.3m (FY2023) to $184.1m (FY2024) and $145.1m (FY2025) while two acquisitions were madesrc

In their favour 2

  • Open-market purchase of 24,000 shares (about $1.0m) in June 2026; no open-market sales in the past twelve months, only shares withheld for tax on vestingsrc
  • Say-on-pay passed with 98.3% of votes cast for and against in May 2026 (over 98% in 2025); hedging and pledging are bannedsrc

Career

  1. 2023-04 – now
    Crane NXT, Co.src
    President & CEO; director
    Crane NXT became independent on 2023-04-03 when Crane Holdings, Co. separated into Crane NXT and Crane Company
  2. 2022-10 – 2023-04
    Crane Holdings, Co.src
    CEO of the Crane NXT organization (CEO designate ahead of the separation)
    Offer letter: $800k salary, $700k sign-on cash in two installments, $2.2m make-whole RSUs; his role was to be eliminated, with severance, if the separation had not closed within 18 months
  3. 2022-06 – 2022-11
    Vontier Corporationsrc
    President & CEO, Mobility Solutions
  4. 2018-02 – 2022-06
    Gilbarco Veeder-Root (Vontier subsidiary)src
    President
    Press release: about $2bn revenue, 6,000 employees, sales in over 40 countries; several acquisitions into recurring-revenue models (company's own description)
  5. 2010 – 2018
    Tyco Internationalsrc
    Roles of progressive responsibility, including VP & General Manager of the SimplexGrinnell division
    Eight years at Tyco per EX991-2022-10-20; the 2010 and 2018 end points come only from the org-chart search result

Undated in the sources

  • General Electricsrc, Ten years with expanding responsibilities (roles not named)

Not located: The General Electric decade is undated and its roles unnamed in every source searched (it precedes Tyco, so roughly the 2000s); Tyco start and end years rest on one search result

Achievements

  • Hired from outside in October 2022 to lead the Crane NXT business and took it independent in the April 2023 separation from Crane Holdingssrc
  • Ran Gilbarco Veeder-Root, a Vontier subsidiary of about $2bn revenue and 6,000 employees, from 2018 to 2022src
  • Has pursued an acquisition-led strategy: OpSec Security (May 2024) and Antares Vision (agreed September 2025 at about EUR 445m enterprise value, completed April 2026)src
  • 2025 bonus scorecard: revenue $1,568.6m against a $1,524.0m target, adjusted operating profit $335.8m against $354.0m, adjusted FCF $213.5m against $226.3m; paid 93.7% of targetsrc
  • Bought 24,000 Crane NXT shares on the open market on 2026-06-12 at about $42.13, roughly $1.0msrc

Education

  • University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, BS Ceramic Engineeringsrc
  • Northwestern University, MS Industrial Engineering and Management Sciencesrc
  • Northwestern University, PhD Materials Science and Engineeringsrc

Background

  • Family Neither the 2026 proxy nor the FY2025 10-K carries an Item 401(d) family-relationship statement; no family relationship with another director or officer was locatedsrc
  • Boards Director of Crane NXT since 2023 and a member of its Executive Committee; the only non-independent director. The chair (John S. Stroup) is a separate, non-employee directorsrc
  • Other Holds a PhD in materials science; an engineer by training who came up through General Electric and Tyco operating rolessrc
  • Other Change-in-control agreement pays a lump sum on a qualifying termination; estimated at $6.3m had it occurred on 2025-12-31. Ordinary involuntary severance is one year of salarysrc

The promise ledger

No promise on the record yet: the research routine has not scored this company's guidance.

Sources

11
  1. Filing Crane NXT, Co. DEF 14A (accession 0001140361-26-013414) · 2026-04-07
  2. Filing Crane NXT, Co. 10-K for FY2025, Information about our Executive Officers and signatures (0000025445-26-000009) · 2026-02-26
  3. Filing Crane NXT, Co. 8-K Item 5.07, 2026 annual meeting results (0000025445-26-000023) · 2026-05-28
  4. Filing Crane Holdings, Co. 8-K Item 5.02, appointment of Aaron Saak as CEO of the Crane NXT organization (0001193125-22-265693) · 2022-10-20
  5. Filing Crane Holdings, Co. press release 'Crane Holdings, Co. Names Aaron W. Saak CEO of Crane NXT', Exhibit 99.1 to the 2022-10-20 8-K · 2022-10-20
  6. Filing Crane NXT, Co. 8-K Items 7.01/8.01, Antares Vision acquisition agreements (0000025445-25-000086) · 2025-09-18
  7. Filing SEC XBRL companyconcept us-gaap/NetIncomeLoss, CIK 25445 (FY2025 10-K, 0000025445-26-000009) · 2026-02-26
  8. Filing Form 4, Aaron W. Saak, open-market purchase of 2026-06-12 (0001930489-26-000006) · 2026-06-16
  9. Filing Form 4, Aaron W. Saak, RSU vesting and tax withholding of 2026-02-26/28 (0000950103-26-003049) · 2026-03-02
  10. Filing Form 4, Aaron W. Saak, RSU vesting and tax withholding of 2025-11-28 (0000950103-25-015549) · 2025-12-01
  11. Web search result WebSearch: 'Aaron Saak Tyco SimplexGrinnell General Electric career Gilbarco Veeder-Root president' (org-chart listing dates the SimplexGrinnell VP & GM role Feb 2010 to Jan 2018) · 2026-09-24