GoCardless names Franck Cohen as first chairman of the board
UK-based paytech GoCardless has named Franck Cohen as its first chairman of the board, as it looks to achieve profitability.
Franck Cohen, GoCardless’ first chair of the board
Cohen brings more than 25 years of technology and software experience to his new role, having previously served as president of digital core and industry solutions and global chief customer officer at SAP, where he spent over a decade in various senior positions. Before that, he worked as executive vice president and general manager of EMEA and North America at Lawson Software.
He also serves as chairman of the board at CYE, an Israeli cybersecurity firm, and acts an advisor for multiple start-ups and tech firms including Workday and UIPath.
Hiroki Takeuchi, co-founder and CEO at GoCardless, says Cohen’s appointment will bring “focus” to the leadership team, as well as the ability to make “fast and effective decisions”.
“Both of these will become even more important over the next 18 months as we push towards profitability. We’ll also benefit from his track record of driving multiple M&A transactions, which will support our ambitious growth plans,” comments Takeuchi.
The chairman appointment follows GoCardless laying off 15% of its workforce in the UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, or about 135 roles, as part of wider cost reduction plans last month. The company had also reduced the size of its senior leadership team by 25%, “as we believe that a smaller group is more suitable to lead a smaller organisation”, it had said at the time.
