A change at the top usually follows a change in ownership, and so it is at AccessPay, the Manchester bank-integration provider, which has appointed Johan Jardevall as chief executive months after Accel-KKR took a strategic majority stake. Jardevall succeeds Anish Kapoor, who becomes chairman after more than a decade running the company. Kapoor stays on as a major shareholder and board member, working with the new chief executive on M&A, product strategy and partnerships.
Kapoor took the top job in 2014 and oversaw AccessPay's move from an early-stage business to a fintech infrastructure provider serving organisations in more than 100 countries, building a bank-integration platform aimed at finance and treasury teams dealing with payment complexity, regulatory change and the ISO 20022 migration. The incoming chief executive brings more than 25 years in enterprise software and SaaS across Europe and the UK, most recently as CEO of Person Centred Software.
This transition has been carefully considered and planned around the next phase of AccessPay's growth journey. We have built a strong business and product offering alongside an exceptional leadership team and a culture I'm incredibly proud of. Following Accel-KKR's recent investment, now is the right time to bring in a leader with deep experience in scaling software businesses to lead the company's next phase of maturity and operational growth.
Jardevall set out his reading of the business.
AccessPay has built a highly compelling proposition. By helping CFOs automate and secure the movement of money across their organisations, it enables finance and treasury teams to operate more efficiently, scale with confidence, and take on a more strategic, forward-looking role within the business.
The framing from the investor side is candid about what comes with private-equity backing. Phil Cunningham, managing director at Accel-KKR, pointed to operational excellence, commercial execution and growth at pace as the priorities for the next stage. AccessPay says it will keep investing in product, bank connectivity, fraud and error prevention, and ISO 20022 support. For a finance-automation business that has spent its first decade proving the product, the next test is whether it can scale that platform fast enough to justify the new ownership's expectations.
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