Peter Karpas, the CEO of Xero's North American operations, is stepping down from his job. The company made the disclosure earlier this month in a filing with the New Zealand Stock Exchange. It did not give an end date for Karpas, who was hired as the first person the position in February.
The company said Xero CFO Ross Jenkins, based in San Francisco, Calif., will serve in Karpas' place until a replacement is found.
Xero will need someone in the job since it anticipate making an initial public offering in this country before its year ends on March 31. Xero also plans to build its leaderhips team in the U.S. and world markets and "expects to make a number of key appointments over the next three months." The cloud software company's worldwide CEO Rod Drury thanked Karpas for his work in helping "establish strong foundations for Xero in the U.S. market."
Before joining Xero, Karpas spent three and a half years with PayPal and slightly more than 10 years at Intuit where he was an SVP and later a president of the Quicken Health operations.
Bob Scott has provided information to the tax and accounting community since 1991, first as technology editor of Accounting Today, and from 1997 through 2009 as editor of its sister publication, Accounting Technology. He is known throughout the industry for his depth of knowledge and for his high journalistic standards. Scott has made frequent appearances as a speaker, moderator and panelist and events serving tax and accounting professionals. He has a strong background in computer journalism as an editor with two former trade publications, Computer+Software News and MIS Week and spent several years with weekly and daily newspapers in Morris County New Jersey prior to that. A graduate of Indiana University with a degree in journalism, Bob is a native of Madison, Ind