Karpas, who reports to company CEO Rod Drury, was most recently VP and GM for PayPal's North America Small and Medium Business, a post he held starting in September 2012, and had been a VP in a Canadian position with PayPal from September 2010. Jamie Sutherland, president of Xero U.S., will report to Karpas.

Xero also added U.S. talent with the appointment of a new chairman and a board member from this country. Chairman Sam Knowles resigned and was replaced by Chris Liddell, who was most recently CFO and vice chairman of General Motors. He was Microsoft's CFO from 2005 through 2009.

Xero also named Bill Veghte, based in San Francisco, Calif., to its board of directors. Veghte is EVP and GM of Hewlett Packard's Enterprise Group.