Aug 2022
18
A Time of Change at Bright
This week was both a sad and exciting week for everyone here at Bright as our current Chief Executive Officer, Paul Byrne has decided to step down as CEO and transition into a new role as Founder Board Director. It is hard to put into words how amazing a CEO Paul Byrne has been for the past 32 years. As the founding father of Thesaurus Software and Brightpay Paul built Thesaurus Software from a small family company to become Bright, a leading provider of accounting, payroll and HR solutions. With this amazing growth the small company family has grown to a family of over 200 employees who I think will all agree that the company wouldn’t be where it is today without Paul’s hard work and amazing leadership.
Although it is sad to have our amazing leader stepping down it allows Paul to get back to what he loves, his original product baby, Thesaurus Payroll Manager which he is excited to dedicate more of this time towards. So while Paul gets back to his coding roots we are both delighted and excited to announce that AccountancyManager’s Kevin McCallum will take the baton from Paul and will be Bright’s new CEO. ??
Kevin joined Bright as part of the AccountancyManager acquisition back in March 2022 and since then Kevin has shown great knowledge, energy, and experience. Since joining Bright, Kevin has been impressed with our shared vision and passion for the future of the accounting industry which is what will make for an exciting year ahead with Kevin at the helm.
To celebrate this new phase in Paul and Kevin’s lives we had a small celebration in our head office in Duleek where kind words were shared by our Chief Revenue Officer, Karen and Chief People Officer, Laura who presented Paul with a small gift to mark Paul’s impact on the business and to show our thanks for what he has done for the company and its employees to date. And for us to always remember our former CEO we have changed the name of his favourite room, the boardroom, to be 'The Paul Byrne Suite'.
Thank you again Paul for everything you have done for the staff over the past 32 years and congratulations to both Paul and Kevin on their new roles, the future is certainly Bright.
Jul 2022
27
AM Takes Xerocon 2022
Last week the AM team exhibited at Xerocon for the first time. Xerocon is described as the Glastonbury for accountants, and if you haven't been or seen the photos - it's a big deal. Unlike other conferences, accountants attend Xerocon for the talks (rather than to see the exhibitors) and comedian Sue Perkins opened the show at 9am. Sue (best known for the Great British Bake Off) was brilliant throughout the event.
AM had great conversations with attendees and were consistently surprised at the size of the firms they talked to. Typically, when attending events like AccountEx, AM would talk to smaller firms (sole practitioners, 2 or 3 employees), but on average, everyone had around 30 employees.
AM ended the event with 115 scanned badges, all of which have been passed over to the Teleprospecting team. It was a tremendous amount, and we and AM were delighted they got the opportunity to have gotten the opportunity to speak with so many firms that were interested in the product. They also got the chance to meet many existing users and got to know them a bit more on a personal level.
Key Takeaways;
• Most likely because attendees have to pay, only the larger firms attend the event.
• Many disgruntled Senta users' concerns regarding the Iris acquisition are now becoming a reality.
• People liked the idea of AM joining Bright - BrightPay and AM both have a great reputation and users are excited to see what we can achieve together.
