Chair
Sir Donald joined the board in July 2012 and became chair on 1 September 2012. He is also chair of the Nomination Committee. Sir Donald is currently chair of the Legacy Council of the Medical Research Council, and non-executive chair of Tide, a business banking platform. Sir Donald has recently chaired the London Stock Exchange and is a past chair of: the Royal Mail plc, Smiths Group plc, the London Metal Exchange, Amersham plc, Taylor Nelson Sofres plc, the ifs School of Finance and EveryChild. He has also served as senior independent director of Allied Domecq plc and Scottish Power plc.
Sir Donald had a 20-year career with Barclays Group, during which time he was chair and chief executive of BZW Investment Management and acting chief executive of BZW, followed by 15 years with the AXA Group including holding the posts of chair and chief executive of AXA Investment Managers and chair of AXA Framlington.
Chief executive officer
Steve joined Sage in January 2014, having previously been operating partner and co-head of the Portfolio Support Group at the private equity firm Apax Partners, which he joined in 2009. Prior to this Steve built over 10 years’ experience leading the finance function for three listed UK companies, culminating as chief financial officer for FTSE 100 company Invensys plc, the global technology-related business, from 2006 to 2009. Between 2004 and 2006 he was group finance director for Spectris plc, the FTSE 250 precision instrumentation and controls company, and from 1997 to 2003 he was with Marconi PLC, acting as chief financial officer from 2001.
Steve qualified as a chartered accountant in 1985 with Ernst & Whinney, now part of EY, and holds a bachelor of commerce degree from Liverpool University.
You can follow Steve on Twitter @SteveHare
Chief financial officer
Independent non-executive director
A senior software technology leader with extensive experience in driving P&L, catalysing growth, and transforming product portfolios to capture the cloud opportunity, Sangeeta joined the board on 1 May 2020. She is also a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.
Her experience spans a broad range of public and private companies, from the Fortune 100 to a $30M stage start-up. Sangeeta has also held senior management roles at F5 Networks Inc, Cisco Systems and Alkira Inc, a cloud native software start-up in San Jose, California where she served as chief marketing officer. Sangeeta holds MBAs from the Wharton School of Business, University of Pennsylvania and the Symbiosis Institute of Management at Pune, India.
John joined the board on 31 May 2019 and is a member of the Nomination Committee and Remuneration Committee. He is currently chief executive officer of Eggplant, which specialises in AI-powered software test automation.
Previously John pioneered the space of streaming analytics as co-founder, president and chief technology officer of Apama (now part of Software AG). He drove the evolution of platforms for digital business, while serving as executive vice president of corporate strategy and chief technology officer at NASDAQ-listed Progress Software and as chief technology officer of Big Data, head of industry solutions and chief marketing Officer at Frankfurt-listed Software AG. As chief executive officer at Plat.One (acquired by SAP in 2016) he drove the commercial development of platforms to support internet of things applications.
John holds a doctorate in computer science from Cambridge University and is the author of the book "Thingalytics: Smart Big Data Analytics for the Internet of Things”.
Andrew joined the board on 1 May 2021 as non-executive director and chair designate, and will succeed Sir Donald Brydon as chair, when Sir Donald retires at the end of September 2021. Upon becoming chair, Andrew will also become Chair of the Nomination Committee. Currently, Andrew is a non-executive director of UK Government Investments Ltd.
Andrew previously served as chair of Severn Trent plc from 2010 until 2020 and Elementis plc from 2014 until 2021, where he also chaired the Nomination Committee and was a member of the Corporate Responsibility Committee and Remuneration Committee at Severn Trent plc. Previously, Andrew was a non-executive director of Wolseley plc, where he was also the senior independent director and chair of the Remuneration Committee. From 2003 until 2009, he served as chief executive officer of npower, leading its transformation following its demerger from National Power in 2000. Andrew holds a BSc (Honours) degree in Mechanical Engineering and is a fellow of the Energy Institute.
Annette Court was appointed to the board on 1 April 2019 and is chair of the Remuneration Committee and a member of the Audit and Risk Committee. She has been chair of Admiral Group since 2017 and a board member since 2012.
Between 2013 and 2017, Annette was a non-executive director of Foxtons Group plc. Her prior roles also include chief executive officer of the Direct Line Group (formerly known as RBS Insurance) and Europe General Insurance for Zurich Financial Services, senior independent director of Jardine Lloyd Thompson Group and a member on the board of the Association of British Insurers (ABI).
Drummond joined the board on 1 January 2014 and is a member of the Remuneration, Audit and Risk, and Nomination Committees. Previously, he was the senior independent director of WH Smith plc and FirstGroup plc, a non-executive director then chair of Mitchells & Butlers plc and chief executive officer of Dairy Crest Group plc. The majority of Drummond’s career prior to this was spent with Procter and Gamble, Mars and PepsiCo.
Independent non-executive director
Derek Harding was appointed to the board on 2 March 2021 and is a member of the Audit and Risk Committee.
Since March 2019, Derek has been the chief financial officer at Spectris plc, and has held several senior financial leadership roles during his career including chief financial officer at Senior plc, group finance director at Shop Direct and finance director of Wolseley UK. He also has broad experience across a range of commercially focused financial and operational roles including strategy, investor relations, and mergers & acquisitions. Derek qualified as a chartered accountant with PwC.
Irana joined the Board on 1 May 2020. In February 2021, she was appointed chief product officer of Typeform, a SaaS company specialising in online form building and surveys.
Prior to this, she held the roles of president of GoDaddy EMEA, senior vice president and general manager for GoDaddy's productivity business, where she led teams that provide small businesses with tools and services to help run their ventures. Irana previously worked for Intuit where she oversaw the launch of QuickBooks POS with Mobile Payments integration, enabling more than 200,000 merchants to "go mobile" and has also held product and development roles at Google and IBM.
