Xero’s new chief executive may be a San Francisco local, but the serial entrepreneur and former Google president says the market was wrong to interpret her appointment as a doubling-down on expansion in the challenged region.
She also founded e-commerce marketing tech company Joyus, which was acquired by StackCommerce in September 2017, and most recently was president of ticketing platform StubHub.in her first Australian interview since taking on the role, Ms Singh Cassidy said being based in the US was advantageous because she was halfway between Xero’s biggest markets – Australia and New Zealand, and the UK.
“They’ve pivoted several times with different strategies in the US and have failed to gain any real traction after a decade, so it’s not clear how this succeeds or how much further capital they’ll need to allocate,” DNR Capital investment analyst Chris Tynan said.Her first experience in business was when she was only seven years old and would help her dad with his taxes.
“At uni, one of first jobs was working for Revenue Canada [the national taxation office] as a consultant at tax time. That’s how I learnt entrepreneurship.”