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Jodi Uecker out as Interim President at Sage: Hi Wayne, As Sage begins the 2016 fiscal year, we announced today that Jodi Uecker is finishing her interim assignment as president of Sage North America. In the short space of four months, Jodi has provided great leadership and created a strong momentum and foundations for success. We wish Jodi well and thank her for her excellent contributions. Following a successful Sage Summit, Sage remains absolutely committed to our partners and look to build on the progress we've made together. Sage EVP and Chief Revenue Officer Rich Spring will continue to spearhead the Sage North America partner business and focus on delivering business performance and charting the way forward for our channel partner strategy. The new addition of VP of Channel Strategy and Programs Paige Erickson to Rich's leadership team will further support our partner-centric, customer-focused mindset and define our commitment to growing our business together with our trusted partners. Rich, Paige, and our team will continue to focus on delivering on the themes launched at Sage Summit. As we advance the NA business and build on the platform for accelerated growth, we will continue our search for the permanent role of president for Sage North America. In the meantime, Marc Scheipe will expand his role beyond Sage North America CFO to serve as the interim president for Sage North America. Rich Spring will report into Marc. Please let me know if you have any questions. Thanks!

Will the year end financial statements disclose her compensation for 2015?

No. They have never disclosed anything like that previously. I think they only show directors of Sage UK. Making your CFO become interim president? Is Sage NA being dressed for sale?

There is little synergy between Sage Live/Sage One and the Sage legacy products. Makes sense to me. Sage would keep X3, SPS and possibly the Payroll services.

Movement of money

If none of the products share a development platform then the ""movement of money"" is out the window.

Boy, it's hard to read this in any good way. Scheipe has no experience in a company anything close to Sage's nature. It seems as if Jodi was a real possibility, and if so, they were weren't looking too hard beyond her. Hence, fall back to CFO when she decided that she wasn't interested in the direction it would have to go. I have a hard time thinking that Sage would decide she couldn't stay. The structure of the announcement is bass-ackwards from normal ones of this type. The appointment of the CFO is almost an afterthought will LOTS of time spent bragging about all the great things they've done for the channel.

I think they play up the channel angle because Jodi appeared to be brought in to help mend fences with the channel.

Yes, and it deflects from main news: ""our channel President left us and now have a CFO in charge, but don't think too much about that because we have 2 great channel-oriented execs who stated."" I'll be interested to see if rumors of finding a buyer float in the next months.

Was it ever mentioned that Jodi was ""interim""? The interim has been replaced with another interim? The hype at Summit pertaining to Sage 100 development may have been a strategy to maximize the sale price.

Well ... I suppose if we trot out the sell off rumors every eight months or so eventually we will be right. And yes, Doug, the interim was there the entire time. I had lunch with her a month ago and she said that it was her decision to be interim and she was back for a short period by her own choice. Not sure why they are going from one interim to another interim unless Jodi only gave them a six month window and they couldn't find a permanent replacement quickly enough.

OK Peter. Either way, Sage sure knows how to feed the rumor mill. CFO as Interim after an Interim departs after only 4 months is basically not done if you want to project confidence. Kelly's new regime is certainly different, but I'm not sure UK's DNA has changed. Having lived through amazing and blatant lies by top execs during the SLX sale, and watching Sage CRM get blindsided by a Salesforce announcement that clearly had more meaning than was initially admitted, I am just a little skeptical.

We'll always have Acumatica."" (apologies to Casablanca)

I think John's point is spot on. Really though ... there is no upside to hand-wringing at this point. Pascal's reign of terror opened even the most slavish Sage fanboy's eyes to the risk of putting all eggs in one basket. Or at least in the Sage basket.

Yes. It doesn't change the strategy we all should be following, hard as it is. I couldn't help but be a bit disappointed, hoping that maybe the past 6 months meant things might let up. But no. Regardless of end game, this is all aimed at stanching the customer-loss rate, not building a viable operation.

Rich Spring will report into Marc."" ""Into?"" Bad word choice, methinks.

UK is now the center of Sage, and Kelly is the Global CEO. This means the President NA is simply an administrative position to keep the middle Managers in line according to what Stephen dictates. I don't think it implies anything more than that.

No wonder they can't find anyone who wants to be the NA Office Manager.... I mean, ""President"".

Maybe there's a manager of an Irvine McDonalds who would see it as a step up...

Question #1: Please pronounce the word ""focus"". (Hint: It's an English word.)

In reviewing Marc's LinkedIn profile, his title of CFO is misleading in terms of his past experience, education and capabilities. He has had diverse industry and functional experience, CEO level responsibilities and leadership qualities. Not spending one's entire career in the software industry doesn't necessaily mean they can't provide leadership and vision in a software company.

@PhilMcIntosh LOL... You must mean an Atlanta McDonalds. I thought I read the NA corporate office is moving to Atlanta.... or maybe that is an interim office.

You have a good point, John. Leadership is a strong thread through his career, starting with F-18 pilot and Top Gun. Nothing to sneeze at. Still, it is worth remembering that neither Marc nor Rich have experience in the consulting industry, nor with significant product management. I think that says something. We shall see. We know where Sage is heading. There might be something beyond rearranging of deck chairs with the legacy brands, but the course is certainly set. UK's announcement of PWC partnership for Sage Live further points in a different from what the current channel was used to.

I think @DougHiggs figured out why the ""temps""...

And he landed 300x on an aircraft carrier. U.S. Navy FA-18 pilot. 1800 flight hours, 300 carrier arrested landings and multiple leadership positions within aircraft squadron. Awarded Air Medal for 36 combat missions in support of U.N. operations over Southern Iraq and Bosnia Herzegovina. Program Manager for U.S. Navy Advanced Air-to-Air tactics curriculum. U.S. Navy Atlantic Fleet expert on threat country air tactics and pilot capabilities. TOPGUN graduate.