Item 5.02.
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Departure of Directors or Certain Officers; Election of Directors; Appointment of Certain Officers; Compensatory Arrangements of Certain Officers.
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On January 4, 2021, Carlos Garcia-Parada, MBA joined Rocket Pharmaceuticals, Inc. (the “Company”) as the Company’s Chief Financial Officer and Principal
Financial Officer.
Mr. Garcia-Parada, age 56, most recently served as the Vice President & Finance Head Oncology USA at Novartis International AG (“Novartis”), a global
pharmaceutical company, a position he held since January 2011. Prior to that role, he held positions of increasing seniority at Novartis and its predecessor company Ciba-Geigy AG, beginning in 1988. Mr. Garcia-Parada holds a Master of Business
Administration from the University of Chicago – Booth School of Business and a degree in Accounting from Gran Colombia University, Bogota, Colombia.
Mr. Garcia-Parada’s offer letter provides for “at will” employment. Pursuant to the terms of his offer letter, Mr. Garcia-Parada is entitled to receive
an annual base salary of $410,000 per year and a target bonus of 40% of such salary. In accordance with the offer letter, the Company granted Mr. Garcia-Parada a stock option to purchase 125,000 of the Company’s common ordinary shares (the “Option”)
pursuant to the Company’s Second Amended and Restated 2014 Stock Option and Incentive Plan with a per share exercise price equal to the closing price of the Company’s common stock on the Nasdaq Global Market on the date of grant. One-third of the
shares subject to the Option will vest and become exercisable on the one-year anniversary of the date of grant, and the remaining two-thirds of the shares subject to the Option will vest and become exercisable in eight quarterly increments over the
following two years, subject to Mr. Garcia-Parada’s continued employment with the Company. Mr. Garcia-Parada has not entered into any related party transactions with the Company that are required to be disclosed pursuant to Item 404(a) of Regulation
S-K. Mr. Garcia-Parada has no family relationship with any of the executive officers or directors of the Company. There were neither any arrangements nor any understandings between Mr. Garcia-Parada and any other person pursuant to which he will be
appointed as an officer of the Company.
The foregoing description of Mr. Garcia-Parada’s offer letter is only a summary and is qualified in its entirety by reference to the full
text of the agreement, a copy of which will be filed with the Company’s Annual Report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2020.
John Militello, CPA, previously the Company’s Vice President – Finance, Senior Controller, Treasurer and Principal Financial and Accounting Officer, will
now serve as the Company’s Vice President – Finance, Senior Controller, Treasurer and Principal Accounting Officer.