All change at the top at WANdisco as it resumes share trading

Sheffield data firm WANdisco, which has now resumed trading of its shares, has today revealed sweeping changes to its management board.

The company confirmed a successful equity fundraise of $30m (£24m) earlier this month.

An investigation concluded in June millions of pounds worth of false purchase orders made by one of the firm’s senior sales employee at WANdisco had supposedly come from eight different companies.

Trading in the business’s shares was suspended after the discrepancies in sales figures came to light in March and only resumed yesterday – 25 July.

Board changes unveiled today include:

·   Stephen Kelly will join the Board as chief executive officer having served as interim chief executive officer since 10 May 2023.

·   Ijoma Maluza will join the Board as chief financial officer having served as interim chief financial officer since 11 April 2023.

·    Xenia Walters will join the Board as a non-executive director and chair of the Audit and Risk Committee.

·    Chris Baker will join the Board as a non-executive director and chair of the Remuneration Committee.

·  Karl Monaghan, non-executive director and current chair of the Audit and Risk Committee and the Remuneration Committee will step down from the Board ahead of the next Annual General Meeting in August.

·   Yeturu Aahlad, chief scientist, will step down from the Board and will remain a member of the Executive Team.

WANdisco adds that Peter Lees will remain as senior independent director and continue to be chair of the Nomination Committee.

Ken Lever remains as non-executive interim chairman.  As previously announced, now that the refinancing has been completed and the share suspension has been lifted, a process will begin to identify a permanent non-executive chair of the Board.

Lever said: “Following the successful refinancing of WANdisco and the lifting of the share suspension, we are now able to formally shape the Board to support growth and value creation for shareholders.

“I am delighted Chris and Xenia have agreed to join us at this very important juncture in the re-establishment of the company as a leading business in the data-integration software market.

“I am very appreciative of the significant commitment shown by Karl and Aahlad to the Board’s activities, especially during the very challenging times for the company.”

Walters began her career with PriceWaterhouseCoopers (1991 to 1997) and during her career worked in various finance roles at Allied Colloids plc, Ciba Speciality Chemicals and Huntsman Chemicals.

She was with Regus plc from 2003 to 2011, initially as group financial controller then as UK CFO.

She was group finance director of INTO University Partnerships and then interim CFO of Oxford International Education Group until 2015, ultimately leading to her assuming the role of group chief financial officer of SDL plc and then group CFO of Snowfox Group.

Baker is currently a partner of CBCS Associates, a software advisory business.

From 1983 to 1997 he was with Digital Equipment Company, rising to serve as UK sales director for outsourcing.

During the period 1997 to 2014, he held several senior roles within Oracle, rising to senior vice president and worldwide head of ISV/OEM/Java Sales.

He was then executive director of Xchanging plc from 2014 to 2016, leading the Xuber Insurance Software business, and from 2016 to 2021 was CEO of Capita Software.