Simon Witkiss joins Ciphr as VP of product

Ciphr, a leading UK provider of SaaS HR software, has announced the appointment of Simon Witkiss as its first VP of product. He joins the ECI-backed group’s leadership team, with immediate effect.

Bringing decades of experience in product management and product marketing, including 15 years in product leadership roles, Witkiss takes over responsibility for Ciphr’s product strategy across its suite of market-leading HR, payroll, recruitment and learning solutions. He’ll lead all product activities for the group, further accelerating Ciphr’s product innovation and ongoing growth.

He will report directly to Ciphr CEO Sion Lewis, who he previously worked with at IRIS Software.

More recently, Witkiss served as global head of product & marketing at TrustQuay, a SaaS fintech provider to the trust, corporate and funds services sector, where he was a member of the management team that led the company through a PE-backed management buyout in 2019 and subsequent sale last year.

Prior to this, he held various product leadership roles – helping to create and build market-focused and customer-orientated product strategies and culture – across a variety of SaaS products in travel, big data, and supply chain industries. Witkiss also spent six years at IRIS Software, responsible for their accountancy products.

This is the third leadership hire by Lewis since he took charge of Ciphr earlier this year.

Sion Lewis, CEO of Ciphr, says: “We’re delighted to welcome Simon to Ciphr. He has an impressive track record of developing and delivering customer-focused products and services to the market and his strategic insights will be a huge asset to the business as we build out our product proposition. He’s a great fit for Ciphr, and I’m confident that his commercial expertise and experience are just what we need.

“One of the key aspects that I’ve been focused on in my first four months at Ciphr, is making sure that we have the right leadership team in place. That’s why we’ve bolstered our board and introduced three important new roles – chief marketing officer, chief sales officer, and VP of product – to support me and help drive Ciphr on the next phase of its exciting growth journey.”

Simon Witkiss, VP of product at Ciphr, says: “I’m thrilled to be joining Ciphr and am looking forward to working with such an innovative and talented team. Ciphr is an ambitious, customer-centric business with a vision to help UK organisations grow by leveraging the value of their people. Throughout my career, I’ve worked on business-critical software and, to me, there’s nothing more critical to a business than its people.

“Ciphr is already well-known as a successful innovator in the UK’s HR technology market. I’m relishing the opportunity to build on that success and help shape the future of HCM software – to deliver an even better experience for Ciphr customers and their people.”

Other senior new starters at Ciphr in recent months include Neal Morris, who joined as director of data science and analytics from UK Tote Group, and IT manager Stephen Walker, who joined from Thomson Reuters. Ciphr also has a new head of learning and development, Karen Lough (Assoc CIPD).

Ciphr is a leading UK-based provider of integrated HR, payroll, learning and recruitment solutions. Ciphr also offers off-the-shelf and bespoke eLearning content and diversity and inclusion consultancy services through its recent acquisition, Marshall E-Learning. Over 230 employees work across the group, which includes Ciphr, Digits LMS, Marshall E-Learning, and Payroll Business Solutions (PBS).

For more information about Ciphr, please visit www.ciphr.com.

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Media enquiries:
Emma-Louise Jones, digital PR manager at Ciphr
e: ejones@ciphr.com
t: 01628 244206

Chris Boddice, chief marketing officer at Ciphr
e: cboddice@ciphr.com
Website: www.ciphr.com
Twitter: @ciphrhrsoftware
LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/ciphr

Notes:
A photo to accompany this announcement is available at: www.ciphr.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/05/Simon-Witkiss-Ciphr...

Ciphr is a leading UK-based provider of integrated HR, payroll, learning and recruitment solutions. Ciphr also offers off-the-shelf and bespoke eLearning content and diversity and inclusion consultancy services through its recent acquisition, Marshall E-Learning.

Ciphr’s integrated HCM platform helps organisations manage their end-to-end employee lifecycle so they can deliver an amazing employee experience. With Ciphr, organisations can be confident they can access all their people data in one place, thanks to secure, time-saving integrations between Ciphr’s own solutions and API connections to specialist, third-party tools.

More than 600 organisations use Ciphr solutions globally across the public, private and non-profit sectors, including the Information Commissioner’s Office, the Natural History Museum, and the Met Office.

Ciphr is a privately held company backed by ECI Partners, and headquartered in Marlow, Buckinghamshire. Over 230 employees work across the group, which includes Ciphr, Digits LMS, Marshall E-Learning, and Payroll Business Solutions (PBS).

Ciphr spokespeople are available to provide expert media comment on a broad range of topics, including HR strategy, people management, employee experience and wellbeing, diversity, equity, and inclusion (DE&I), learning and development, the future of work, tech trends, business and leadership, marketing, and more.