Meet Xero’s Executive and Regional Leaders and Board

Ashley is currently a director on the board of Spreedly, a payments orchestration platform. She holds both a Bachelor of Science in International Studies and an MBA from the University of Chicago. But he also understood that starting up an accounting software company required a huge investment—something he didn’t have.

Anjali received her Bachelor of Technology in Electrical Engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, a Master of Computer Engineering from the State University of New York, and a Master of Engineering Management from Stanford University. She was awarded the Distinguished Alumna Award from the Indian Institute of Technology. Bridget is the country manager for New Zealand, responsible for overseeing the execution of New Zealand’s go-to-market strategy, revenue, market share, and advancing Xero’s brand as a leading small business platform.

“We’re proud to support these organizations that align with our purpose – to improve the lives of people in small businesses, their advisors and communities all around the world. Mark is an experienced professional director with more than 20 years of international experience in corporate finance and investment banking. He is currently the chair of Chorus, a director of Fisher & Paykel Healthcare, a board member of the Accident Compensation Corporation (ACC) New Zealand and chair of the ACC Investment Committee. His recent previous directorships include Milford Asset Management (chair) and Z Energy.

Employee to Entrepreneur

Diya leads Xero’s product and technology teams driving product management, product design, engineering, security and data to further improve Xero’s global small business platform for partners and small businesses. Diya has market-leading global experience in designing, developing and launching consumer and business products in high growth mid sized companies, startups and Fortune 500 brands. Before joining Xero in 2023, Diya was Chief Product Officer at Okta where she led product innovation for both its workforce and customer identity business. Prior to that she was Vice President of Product Management at Google, where she was focused on driving adoption for some of the company’s leading products. Diya has a Masters of Business Administration from Harvard Business School and a Bachelor of Electrical Engineering and Economics from the University of Michigan. Brian is an experienced former executive and CEO, having driven growth and innovation for leading technology, SaaS and cloud-based companies, and a professional director.

Board of directors

The decimal point meant it was impossible to register an internet domain name anyway. “We realised that we could pick up a wifi signal from the café across the street. We could pick up the internet kind of very, very loosely,” he said. With not much funds, renting a residential flat wasn’t the only penny-pinching measure in the early days. After she joined in December 2006, Catherine, as the fresh and non-technical voice, often acted as the circuit breaker. “There was only one bathroom…. It was all quite an intimate experience, and we had lots of people coming and doing interviews,” he says.

Meet Xero’s executive and regional leadership teams, and Board

Drury “had private market options, but the IPO delivered more capital at a higher valuation than other options,” Clare said. “Xero was a high-profile IPO offered by leading financial institutions to retail investors — there were risks but these were clearly articulated.” Mark Clare remembers the 2007 IPO well, including the criticisms that it exposed unsophisticated investors to a risky venture that hadn’t yet even had a product to sell. “We probably could’ve raised money on the US west coast, but if we were looking for $NZ15 million, the company would’ve had a valuation of around $NZ20 million, meaning the venture capitalists would’ve got most of the business,” he says.

Our experienced board, executive and leadership teams work to ensure Xero focuses on innovation and performance for our customers. Even in expansion offices like in the USA, this holds true, says Xero USA vice president of products and partnerships Herman Man. “From a financial perspective, New Zealand technology’s ‘Big Bang’ was the sale of TradeMe in 2006. A company started in 1999 was sold less than seven years later for $NZ750 million to Fairfax.” Walker recalled that, three years earlier, Drury had shown him a basic prototype of a new accounting system. The entrepreneur, having studied information systems at university, had technical skills himself and in 2003 was able to mock up a model of his big idea – but it was never spoken of again and Walker had long forgotten about it. “It really was a once in a lifetime opportunity, where it wasn’t just about providing good accounting software, but the data that was sitting on individual PCs. Once you’ve got it into a central store, that was actually really interesting,” Drury said.

So he put the idea on hold and started an e-mail archiving company called AfterMail. After two years, he sold it to Quest Software, giving Drury and Edwards the war chest to do Xero properly. Susan is an experienced non-executive director and business leader with a particular interest in helping companies to drive growth through technology, innovation and organizational culture.

View mutual connections with Rod

Drury went on to complete a computing degree at Victoria University in Wellington, specialising in accounting and information systems. Then in 1987 he joined consulting firm Arthur Young, which later became Ernst & Young. “We’re probably the same sort of people who really like sudoku. There’s a mathematical elegance in accounting and getting accounting right.”

Simplify everyday business admin

• “We had a sales person very early, we had quality assurance people pretty early. We had accounting. Experts in their field. We had help writing, and a product manager as well as the designers and engineers — it cost us really a fair bit,” Walker says.
• But he also understood that starting up an accounting software company required a huge investment—something he didn’t have.
• Recognizing the milestone, it has launched Xero Day – an annual day to celebrate and acknowledge the people, customers, partners and communities who have played an important role in Xero’s journey so far.
• Winkler had indeed made more than six times his initial investment by the time he sold off $NZ15 million of shares in November 2012.

“I think we were legally working there. I’m not entirely sure whether you were allowed to start a business out of an apartment.” “It was a studio apartment. Not even a galley, but a little kitchen, a bathroom and that was it… It was really small. It was grey. It had grey carpet. Grey walls. Very simple, small apartment, about 50 metres square,” Walker recalls. “We loved solving the problems. There was this mathematical beauty in accounting. We loved the equation that debits equalled credits,” Drury said. Despite making great money out of Glazier Systems and AfterMail, accounting had been on Rod Drury’s mind since he was a teenager. With Walker not having any knowledge of accounting, this was a risky project for him – but he immediately felt at peace about walking away from his safe contracting gigs. On May 1, 2006, Walker came in for his first day of work at Drury’s mysterious new venture.

They raised an initial $15 million and then used strategic placements to bring innovative leaders into their register, including Craig Winkler, Peter Thiel, and “a bunch of East Coast hedge funds.” So far they’ve raised about $280 million. Xero automates many day-to-day xero founder tasks and keeps you up to date on the money side of things wherever you are.

They were in enough contact that Drury invited him along to his lavish 40th birthday party, where he was celebrating not just the life milestone but a recent business success. Walker had long moved on from Glazier and VIATX, and he had a good portfolio of small business customers that kept him busy. Rod Drury had already successfully started two companies and exited them for gains of millions of dollars. He was busy as a director of New Zealand classifieds site TradeMe, but had a vision of having a bigger impact on the world.

Xero had done enough to build some profile, though, that someone owned the domain name. Brian has been included in the National Association of Corporate Directors Directorship 100, which recognizes the most influential board members. He holds a Bachelor of Arts with Honors in Economics from Harvard College and a Master of Business Administration from the Stanford Graduate School of Business. David is chair of Ramsay Health Care (a global hospital group), co-chair of the Great Barrier Reef Foundation and the Climate Leaders Coalition, and Chancellor at the University of Sydney.