Board of Directors

Chairman

Sir Donald joined the Board in July 2012 and became Chairman on 1 September 2012. He is also Chair of the Nomination Committee.  Sir Donald is currently Chairman of the Legacy Council of the Medical Research Council, has recently chaired the London Stock Exchange and was a past Chairman 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 Non-executive Director of Allied Domecq plc and Scottish Power plc.

Donald had a 20-year career with Barclays Group, during which time he was Chairman and Chief Executive of BZW Investment Management and acting Chief Executive of BZW followed by fifteen years with the AXA Group including holding the posts of Chairman and Chief Executive of AXA Investment Managers and Chairman 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 he built over 10 years’ experience leading the finance function for three listed UK companies culminating as CFO for FTSE 100 company Invensys plc, the global technology-related business, from 2006 to 2009. Between 2004 and 2006 Steve 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 CFO from 2001.

Steve qualified as a Chartered Accountant in 1985 with Ernst & Whinney, now part of Ernst & Young, and has a Bachelor of Commerce degree from Liverpool University.

You can follow Steve on @SteveHare

Chief Financial Officer

Jonathan joined the Board as an independent non-executive director on 15 May 2013 and served as Chairman of the Audit Committee from November 2013 until December 2018. Jonathan was subsequently appointed Chief Financial Officer of Sage on 4 December 2018, having recently left the role of Group Finance Director of Close Brothers Group plc which he held for 10 years. Prior to that he held the same position at the London Stock Exchange Group plc since 1999. Jonathan has also been a non-executive director of EMAP plc and Chairman of FTSE International. The early part of his career was at Price Waterhouse where he qualified as a chartered accountant.

President, Sage

Blair Crump was appointed to the Board on 1 January 2018 having joined Sage in August 2016 in the newly-created position of President, leading on sales and customer service across the Group.

Blair has significant leadership experience in the technology sector, joining Sage from Texas-based profit realisation company PROS Holdings, where he was Chief Operating Officer. Previously, Blair had led Salesforce.com’s Global Enterprise business, reporting to CEO Marc Benioff, and prior to that had spent five years at Verizon Business, where he was appointed Group President. Blair was also at MCI Communications for 23 years, before its acquisition by Verizon in 2006. Blair has a strong background in sales, customer service and driving growth.

Blair holds a BSc in Economics from The Wharton School, University of Pennsylvania.

You can follow Blair on Twitter @Blair_Crump

Independent non-executive director

Drummond joined the Board on 1st January 2014 and is a member of the Remuneration, Audit and Nomination Committees. He is currently the Senior Independent Non-executive Director of WH Smith plc. 

Previously Drummond was the Senior Independent Non-executive Director of FirstGroup, a Non-executive Director then Chairman of Mitchells & Butlers plc and Chief Executive of Dairy Crest Group plc, prior to which the majority of his career was spent with Procter and Gamble, Mars and PepsiCo. 

Independent non-executive director

John joined the Board on 31 May 2019.  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”.

Independent non-executive director

Jonathan Bewes was appointed to the Board on 1 April 2019 and is Chair of the Audit and Risk Committee. Since April 2017, he has been Vice Chairman, Corporate and Institutional Banking at Standard Chartered Bank and he has been a member of the Board of Next plc since October 2016 and chairs its Audit Committee.

Mr Bewes qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG and spent 25 years in investment banking, with Robert Fleming, UBS and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. As a senior banker, he has provided advice to the boards of many UK and overseas companies on a wide range of financial, strategic and governance issues. Jonathan is a Fellow of the Institute of Chartered Accountants of England and Wales.

Independent non-executive director

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. Ms Court has been Chairman of Admiral Group since 2017 and a board member since 2012.

Between 2007 and 2010 she was CEO of Europe General Insurance for Zurich Financial Services.  Ms Court is former CEO of the Direct Line Group (formerly known as RBS Insurance) and has previously served as a member on the Board of the Association of British Insurers (ABI). She was a non-executive director of Foxtons Group plc from August 2013 to May 2017.

 

Independent non-executive director

Soni joined the Board on 28 February 2017 and is also a member of the Nomination Committee.

She is the former SVP Marketing of Cisco. During her 22 years at the company she was part of a team which was responsible for a number of successes and helped establish multi-billion dollar revenue streams for the company in the Switching, Storage Networking and Server markets. She was also part of the teams that established start-ups which Cisco first funded and later acquired entering new adjacent markets and building successful businesses. Prior to joining Cisco, Soni was a marketing executive at UB Networks and prior to that she was with Excelan which was acquired by Novell. 

Independent non-executive director

Cath Keers joined the Board on 1 July 2017 and is a member of the Remuneration Committee. Ms Keers is a non-executive director TalkTalk Telecom Group plc, Funding Circle Holdings plc and is the Chairman of Ustwo ; digital product and games studio.

Ms Keers was a non-executive director of the Royal Mail group, Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society Limited (LV = ), and the Home Retail Group Limited. Ms Keers started her retail career with Thorn EMI, and after marketing and business development roles at Sky TV, Avon and Next, joined the BT Group in 1996, holding a number of commercial roles, including Marketing Director O2, Chairman of Tesco Mobile and Customer Director O2.