Sage News and Discussion

In a LinkedIn post today ( 4/20/2022 ) Sage COO Lee Perkins announced that he has departed the company.

Perkins was appointed as Sage Group's first COO in August 2020 by Steve Hare.

In this new role, Lee will have responsibility for Sage's operations across all regions, and its product teams. He will be accountable for the day-to-day execution against the strategy towards Sage's vision of becoming a great SaaS company through our focus on customers, colleagues and innovation.

Perkins was at Sage for a total of about 8 years. He served in a number of executive positions and had briefly left in 2016 before coming back in 2018 as the Interim Managing Director for the UK, & Ireland.

What's it all mean?
A COO is presumably what I'd call a "smart money" position. In his role, Perkins would be privy to all manner of company operations and results - including those that are not required to be publicly reported. He might have seen the writing on the wall or an impending re-org as CEO Steve Hare has been in his role for 3y 6 months ( Kelly lasted 3Y 11 mo, Guy Berruyer lasted 4y 3 mo).  Or maybe Sage wasn't happy with his fit for their newly created position and we'll see a replacement soon.

Update: Lee Perkins posted an update to his original post. It's possible his departure was more medical-related than Sage-related.






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Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com
Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
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Advanced appoints Lee Perkins to Chief Commercial Officer role


Former Chief Operating Officer at Sage brings invaluable experience of driving and managing organic growth at scale for SaaS business
Advanced, one of the UK's largest software and services providers, has appointed Lee Perkins as its new Chief Commercial Officer to take responsibility for all revenue and commercial activities. Lee, most recently COO at Sage, will focus on driving sustainable and accelerated organic revenue growth in the business, driving a united, engaged and high performing team.

Lee, also chair of the North East Council of the CBI, has most recently developed his career at Sage, fulfilling leadership roles including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Commercial and Product Officer and EVP & Managing Director, UK & Ireland. He has also served as CEO of cloud services firm M247.

The appointment follows fellow C-Suite appointments from Salesforce, with Narinder Sahota joining Advanced as CTO in September 2021 and Simon Short joining as COO in February 2021. Lee's experience of working for a market leading global SaaS ERP brand headquartered in the UK, will mean Advanced can accelerate its growth and consolidate its market position in line with its goal to become the best provider of software and services to the UK market, whilst expanding globally.

Advanced has seen much transformation and growth over the last two years, with eleven acquisitions made since 2020, as it strives to become a £600 million business by 2025. The appointment will enable CEO, Gordon Wilson, to continue to focus on driving momentum around M&A activity as well as further developing operational and shareholder activities.

Commenting on the new role, Lee said: "Advanced already has a solution portfolio that is second to none. We now need to scale revenue and commercial teams as we drive towards becoming a company almost double the size we are today.

"I cannot wait to start working with the highly respected leadership team at Advanced and hope to inspire, mentor and coach my colleagues to drive significant sustainable growth across the business."

Gordon Wilson, CEO, Advanced comments: "I am thrilled to welcome Lee to Advanced, his experience of working for one of the largest SaaS ERP brands of the size that we aspire to be, will be invaluable to us. He brings a great deal of knowledge and experience which will help us examine what we do today and identify the value drivers that can contribute greatly to our future growth from a point of experience."

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Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com
Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
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Buying up companies is not "growth", it's consolidation...growth implies creation, and the bigger a company gets the worse it becomes at that...

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Phil McIntosh
President
Friendly Systems, Inc.
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Original Message:
Sent: 05-06-2022 09:04
From: Wayne Schulz
Subject: Sage COO Lee Perkins Departs

Advanced appoints Lee Perkins to Chief Commercial Officer role


Former Chief Operating Officer at Sage brings invaluable experience of driving and managing organic growth at scale for SaaS business
Advanced, one of the UK's largest software and services providers, has appointed Lee Perkins as its new Chief Commercial Officer to take responsibility for all revenue and commercial activities. Lee, most recently COO at Sage, will focus on driving sustainable and accelerated organic revenue growth in the business, driving a united, engaged and high performing team.

Lee, also chair of the North East Council of the CBI, has most recently developed his career at Sage, fulfilling leadership roles including Chief Operating Officer, Chief Commercial and Product Officer and EVP & Managing Director, UK & Ireland. He has also served as CEO of cloud services firm M247.

The appointment follows fellow C-Suite appointments from Salesforce, with Narinder Sahota joining Advanced as CTO in September 2021 and Simon Short joining as COO in February 2021. Lee's experience of working for a market leading global SaaS ERP brand headquartered in the UK, will mean Advanced can accelerate its growth and consolidate its market position in line with its goal to become the best provider of software and services to the UK market, whilst expanding globally.

Advanced has seen much transformation and growth over the last two years, with eleven acquisitions made since 2020, as it strives to become a £600 million business by 2025. The appointment will enable CEO, Gordon Wilson, to continue to focus on driving momentum around M&A activity as well as further developing operational and shareholder activities.

Commenting on the new role, Lee said: "Advanced already has a solution portfolio that is second to none. We now need to scale revenue and commercial teams as we drive towards becoming a company almost double the size we are today.

"I cannot wait to start working with the highly respected leadership team at Advanced and hope to inspire, mentor and coach my colleagues to drive significant sustainable growth across the business."

Gordon Wilson, CEO, Advanced comments: "I am thrilled to welcome Lee to Advanced, his experience of working for one of the largest SaaS ERP brands of the size that we aspire to be, will be invaluable to us. He brings a great deal of knowledge and experience which will help us examine what we do today and identify the value drivers that can contribute greatly to our future growth from a point of experience."

------------------------------
Wayne Schulz
wayne@s-consult.com
Schulz Consulting
(860) 516-8990
Moodus, CT
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