Innovation scale-up assigns B2B SaaS industry expert to drive growth and expansion

London, United Kingdom. 17 June 2021 – Innovation scale-up Wazoku has appointed Martin Fincham as its new Chairman, as the company continues to expand its senior team ahead of growth and further expansion in 2021.

Fincham is one of Europe's most highly regarded B2B SaaS entrepreneurs, with a successful background in technology and business over the past three decades. Notable successes include five years as CEO of global enterprise software firm LANSA, during which he increased profitability seven-fold before exiting to a Private Equity buyer in 2018. He has also lived and worked in Silicon Valley after selling his first company to a U.S. acquirer in 2000.

He has since embarked on a portfolio career and works with some of the most innovative start-ups and scale-ups, including Veeqo, Scoro and SHE Software. In his new book published this week 'Diary of a Novice NED - a guide to going plural and developing a portfolio career as a non-executive director', Fincham draws on his extensive experience as a non-executive director and is a further testament to the expertise and strength he brings to Wazoku as Chairman.

“Wazoku drives innovation for some of the world's most forward-thinking organisations, but I have an intuitive feel for inflection points in a business and a market, and our growth potential is suddenly vast," said Fincham. "There's an excellent management team in place, and I am here to help the team do the things they already do even better and then guide them through more unfamiliar territory such as internationalisation, acquisitions and managing hyper-scale growth.”

Wazoku acquired Open Innovation firm InnoCentive in 2020, which gave the company a strong U.S. footprint and rounded out its proposition to deliver 360-degree innovation at scale. Wazoku's integrated Enterprise Innovation Platform now includes Idea Management Software, an Open Innovation Marketplace and Innovation Consulting to provide all the tools an enterprise needs to power innovation.

The company works with organisations such as the MoD, Shell, Barclays, GSK and Mastercard to help them find solutions to the most complex challenges.

"Martin has been on our board for a number of years, and I am delighted to promote him to the Chair role. We have big ambition for our business and sector, and having someone with Martin's track record in B2B SaaS as part of our team is fantastic," said Simon Hill, CEO, Wazoku. "His experience in driving growth for such businesses and his technical expertise will be hugely valuable as we continue to expand the business globally. It's an exciting time to be in the innovation sector, and we are hugely excited to have Martin on board for the next stage of our growth."

As part of the change, John Yeomans, Wazoku's Chairman since 2012, will remain on the board as a NED.

Wazoku was recently listed on the 2021 U.K.'s Best Workplaces™ list (in the medium size] category) published by Great Place to Work® UK on 29 April. Its employees recognised Wazoku as an organisation that promotes a healthy workplace culture through trust, pride and camaraderie during the Covid-19 pandemic.

“Wazoku was my first non-executive director role, and it's a company and management team that I have always believed in," continued Fincham. “But its proposition around where great ideas are found, created and implemented is transformative and very distinct in the market. When you consider the macro factors like the accelerated need for innovation brought about by the pandemic, the move towards more employee engagement and collaboration and the whole sustainability agenda, then it feels like now really is Wazoku’s time to flourish.”

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For further information about Wazoku, visit https://www.wazoku.com

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