GoCardless picks former SAP EMEA president as first chair

After a difficult second quarter that saw CEO and co-founder Hiroki Takeuchi cut 17 per cent of his company’s headcount, GoCardless is looking to turn a new leaf with the appointment of its first chair.

Franck Cohen spent a decade at German enterprise software giant SAP, with much of that time spent as president of the EMEA region and later as global chief customer officer.

Cohen is also chair of Israeli cybersecurity firm CYE, a board member at HR giant AMS and a board advisor to enterprise software group Workday. 

His appointment is the latest in a string of new leaders to join the company, including Alan Cairns as chief people officer and Kamila McWilliam as director of corporate development.

“Franck is a very welcome addition to our growing roster of experienced leaders and advisors, all of whom will help us move to the next stage of our journey,” said Takeuchi.

Takeuchi added that Cohen’s skills will be “even more important over the next 18 months as we push towards profitability.”

The CEO also hinted that GoCardless hasn’t finished its recent acquisitive streak, saying that Cohen’s “track record of driving multiple M&A transactions” will “support our ambitious growth plans.”

GoCardless last year dove aggressively into the open banking payments (or account-to-account payments/A2A) space with its acquisition of Nordigen.

Since then it became one of the first providers to launch variable recurring payments, expanded its open banking features to Germany, and has won a number of new clients.

GoCardless became a unicorn in February 2022 when it raised $312m as part of a Series G funding round that included a valuation of $2.1bn.