Autotask Hires IPO Expert Elmer Lai As CFO To Help Fuel Future Growth

As Autotask works to make significant upgrades to its technology and business, the IT business management platform vendor has added Elmer Lai as CFO to help continue its growth trajectory.

Lai officially took over the role on Jan. 16, replacing Vince Zumbo, who'd held the position for the past four years. Zumbo will remain at Autotask through the end of the month to help with the transition.

With more than 20 years of financial and account experience, Lai has worked extensively in the tech space and helped more than three companies prepare for their initial public offerings. He most recently served as vice president and chief accounting officer at software-as-a-service marketing and sales company HubSpot, where he helped lead the company's $100 million IPO last fall.

[Related: Study: IT Professionals Prioritizing Hardware As Top 2015 Investment]

Lai has also held executive financial positions at Sonus Networks, Airvana and Razorfish/iCube.

In a recent interview with CRN, Lai said he hopes to bring his extensive experience at high-growth companies to Autotask. He said working at HubSpot and readying the company for an IPO gave him a deep understanding of the ins and outs of the SaaS market.

"I like to think that I've seen the playbook on how to grow and expand and grow a really successful, fast-growing company in the SaaS market in a cloud-based industry," Lai told CRN. "I've seen a lot of companies grow from startup to fairly big and going public, some have been acquired. I have a broad range of experience that I hope to apply here, as well."

Lai said he's still working on learning the full scope of the Autotask business. Some of his long-term goals for the company include helping capitalize on what he called a "tremendous opportunity" in front of Autotask, driven by the company's new user interface and cloud-based combined PSA and RMM platform.

"I think the market opportunity in front of us is huge and I think my goal would be to make sure that we are focusing our resources in the right places to make sure that we hit those goals," Lai said.

Autotask has been seeing strong growth lately, CEO Mark Cattini said in an interview. While the company doesn't disclose numbers, he said Autotask is a company of "critical meaningful mass" and has tripled in size over the past four years.

Autotask has made significant additions to its business during this time, including rolling out a new user interface, announcing an acquisition of RMM-company CentraStage and its own acquisition by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.

"We're in a good place financially, we're ahead of where we thought we'd be," Cattini said. "Our goal is rapid growth over the next three to four years. We anticipate maybe quadrupling the company again.

"We think there's a lot of runway in the market, a lot of space and we really are bullish about the future," Cattini said.

While Lai has a track record of helping tech companies prepare for their IPOs, both Lai and Cattini said they "haven't had the conversation yet," particularly with Vista.

"It's an option for us, but at this point honestly it's never even been discussed with Vista," Cattini said.

Cattini said that, should that option come up down the road, he believes Autotask is well positioned to take advantage with a CFO and CEO who both have had public company leadership experience.

"Right now we're just in rapid growth mode...we have the skill set for sure. But, it's something we haven't discussed. If it was an option, we'd be well positioned, but really no plans. No discussion as of yet. One step at a time – it really is one step at a time," Cattini said.

Lai agreed, saying that by continuing to push forward the business growth goals, Autotask will make sure it is prepared either way down the road.

"I believe if you focus on growing a sustainable, profitable business with customers that are loyal, the rest just takes care of itself," Lai said.

NEXT: Partners Hope CFO Invests In Business, Doesn't Take Company Public

David Szpunar, vice president of technology services at Indianapolis, Ind.-based PC Help Services, said he didn't know much about Lai but hopes he'll continue investing in improving the Autotask platform. He said the new UI has been "successful in my opinion" and would like to see Autotask continue that investment into adding new features to the platform.

"The overall company leadership and direction, I'm relatively happy with it right now," Szpunar said.

Kim Drumm, operations manager at Cincinnati, Ohio-based ProSource Technologies, said her company has worked with Autotask since 2009 and has been very happy with the "significant changes" the platform has made in the past year.

"The new user interface, streamlined navigation and CentraStage acquisition take their solution to a whole new level. I have the utmost confidence in the Autotask Leadership Team. I believe the changes they make will only continue to set themselves and their customers up for continued success.’

However, as for an IPO, Szpunar said he hopes Autotask sticks with its plans to stay private.

"I don’t know if I'd be as happy with a public company as a private one," Szpunar said.