John O'Connell has been appointed CEO at eg solutions plc (eg), the AIM listed software company. John was already Chairman, having been appointed in March of this year and is one of the UK's leading IT entrepreneurs.
This is the first executive role he has accepted since he successfully sold Staffware plc in 2004.
John has been asked by the board of eg to lead the ambitious growth plans for the company, emulating the achievements of a 10 fold increase in revenue he achieved in the last eight years at Staffware and other successes since then with both public and private companies in the technology sector, such as the recent sale of Opta Sports Data Ltd to Perform plc.
John has initiated two other senior appointments of ex-colleagues in leadership positions:
• Rob Glenn becomes Chief Operating Officer, a newly created position, heading up business operations in EMEA. At one time Rob led Staffware UK and then Tibco's UK business, which was its largest region outside of North America. Rob comes with over 20 years proven track record in the software sector globally, having achieved high growth for several other leading software companies, such as Global 360 and PROS
• The third new appointment is of Kuljit Bawa who takes on the new role also of VP Sales. He joins eg from McLaren Software where he was (Vice President Global Sales for its Private Sector Division). Kuljit was a founder employee of Staffware graduating from a technical role to Global Sales Director before being promoted to being CEO of Staffware Corporation in the USA, which under his leadership became the fastest growing, most profitable part of the Staffware worldwide business
Elizabeth Gooch, eg founder and largest shareholder, having asked John O'Connell to take over as CEO, has a new role of President and Founder, focusing on Product development and the new relationship with its major Distribution Partner, Aspect Software Inc, headquartered in Massachusetts USA.
These appointments are designed to capitalise on the experience and expertise of a seasoned team which understands the business and technology drivers of the back office optimisation sation sectotor and the chosen target markets, initially finance and utilities.
John O'Connell, CEO, stated: "I have admired for many years the pioneering of eg, boldly defining the market for back office optimisation. It has developed a truly innovative solution that addresses the very real needs of businesses to be more efficient, improve customer service and comply with ever increasing regulations.
"The parallels with Staffware are clear to me, both in the area of optimising administrative processes as well as being, at the beginning, a small, UK software company with an aspiration to be no.1 globally, with all the challenges of educating the market, whilst setting up an international sales and distribution channel.
"Elizabeth Gooch has persuaded me that these parallels cannot be ignored and that I should commit myself to seizing the opportunity she and her team has created. This includes the ground breaking agreement with Aspect Software, not to mention leveraging the reputation gained from the 40+ customers who are benefitting from being the first adopters of Back Office Optimisation 'BOO'. I sincerely believe eg's time has come. The market, technology, distribution channel and customer base are all in place - as is now the management team also, as a result of these appointments," he concluded.