Hawthorne, Calif.-based Space Exploration Technologies (SpaceX), the privately owned rocket builder eyeing a late 2012 initial public offering of stock, said May 11 that it has hired a new chief financial officer with 20 years of financial leadership experience in high-profile, publicly traded companies.

Bret Johnsen spent nearly a decade on the financial side of Irvine, Calif.-based Broadcom Corp., a leading manufacturer of semiconductors for wired and wireless communications. After leaving Broadcom, he served as senior vice president and chief financial office for Mindspeed Technologies, a semiconductor company in Newport Beach, Calif., serving the wired and wireless communications industry.