Curzon a 'no-brainer' hiring

Anna Curzon will step into her new role at Xero in February. Photo / Babiche Martens

Rod Drury pleased Xero has secured another successful female business leader

Rod Drury, chief executive of accounting software firm Xero, says the appointment of Anna Curzon to the role of New Zealand managing director is "a no-brainer".

The former Spark general manager of digital first will step into the new role in February after current managing director Victoria Crone resigned last week to pursue a mayoral candidacy. Curzon has also had around 18 years of banking and financial experience at ASB - something Drury said would be useful in the company's next growth stage.

"We've got to know Anna over a long period of time," Drury said.

"Her blend of technology and digital banking experience is ideal for the next phase of our New Zealand strategy as we digitally connect banks, large corporates and Government into our network of small businesses."

"We really wanted someone that had those relationships with the banks and understood how we could make banking better as well as being able to work with our great partners at those banks so it was really a no brainer to pick Anna."

Curzon will be based in the Auckland office as a key member of Xero's global sales leadership team. She was not available to comment but has said she was looking forward to the role and working with the team at Xero. She had also spoken previously about the difficulty of being a female business leader in an often male-dominated industry, saying it could be hard to speak up but the ability to back herself was one of the best things she had learnt.

Drury said he was excited that Xero had managed to secure another successful female business leader. Although the company already had some great female tech leaders with 36 to 38 per cent of its staff being female, the goal was to get this up to 50 per cent.

He said Crone's mayoral tilt had been a surprise, but was looking forward to Curzon taking on the role.

"Victoria's taken us from a start up to the next level. She's put some great processes and people in place so now we need to focus on how we build on that," he said.

"The next phase will be really focused on the next generation of the work we have planned with the banks, our financial web strategy, what we're doing with large corporates and governments."

Xero also announced the appointment of Doug LaBahn as Xero's vice-president of partner and product marketing. LaBahn will be based in Xero's San Francisco office, and has experience in leading global companies including Dun & Bradstreet, Experian and CircleBack and most recently Sage, where he was leading cloud, mobile, accountants and the global launch of Sage Live with Salesforce.com.

Anna Curzon:

• Grew up in the Waikato with a passion for technology

• Has around 18 years' experience in the financial sector with ASB

• Joined Spark as GM digital first in May

• Will take over as MD Xero in February

• Has a BCom in Marketing from University of Auckland

• Has a PGDip in Commerce, management from the University of Auckland