Drury still making his mark on strategy at Xero

Rod Drury may have stepped down from the role of chief executive of Xero, but in the eyes of shareholders he’s still a big driver of long-term strategy.

Having unanimously voted Mr Drury to return as a non-executive director of the company, shareholders at Xero’s annual general meeting quizzed chairman Graham Smith and new chief executive Steve Vamos about Mr Drury’s role and why he had taken on the title of a non-executive director when it appeared he was still very much involved in the future direction of the company.

“It’s freed me up to do what I’m passionate about. I’m having a huge amount of fun focusing on the long-term strategy and technology. Steve and I are pretty good mates and I’m really enjoying the opportunity to engage on things I’m still so passionate about and jumping in and working with the teams,” Mr Drury said to shareholders ahead of the vote on his re-election to the board.

“What I’m passionate about now is on the product side and the ability to transform the lives of small businesses. The innovation roadmap is set out for the next few years, so without having to focus on the operating side of the business I can focus on machine learning, artificial intelligence, new markets we can get into and new things we can do for small business.”

In March Mr Vamos was appointed to the role of CEO, with Mr Drury saying at the time that he had a stronger skill set to lead Xero’s next stage of development.

To read more, please click on the link below…

Source: Drury still making his mark on strategy at Xero | afr.com