User:JT at Xero/sandbox/Sukhinder Singh Cassidy

Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (born Sukhinder Singh in 1970) is a technology executive and entrepreneur. She is currently the CEO of Xero, formerly the president of StubHub , and has worked at various tech and media companies including Google , Amazon , News Corp, and Polyvore. In 1999, she co-founded Yodlee, and in 2011, she founded JOYUS , the video shopping platform for women, and served as CEO then chairman until 2017. Singh Cassidy is also founder of theBoardlist.

Early life and education
Singh Cassidy was born in 1970 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, to parents of Indian Sikh descent. Her family moved to St. Catharines, Ontario, Canada, when she was 2. Singh Cassidy graduated from the University of Western Ontario and earned her Honours in business administration from that university's Ivey School of Business in 1992.

Singh Cassidy was raised in an entrepreneurial family. Both of her parents were doctors and ran a medical practice for 30 years.

Early career
Singh Cassidy started her career in investment banking at Merrill Lynch on Wall Street before later moving to the Merrill Lynch London office where she worked as an analyst. She then worked as an analyst for British Sky Broadcasting.

In 1998, Singh Cassidy moved to Silicon Valley and joined ecommerce startup Junglee, initially as a product manager but she was quickly moved into a business development role. Following Amazon's acquisition of Junglee in 1998, Singh Cassidy joined Amazon, where she led Merchant Group, one of the company's first programs designed to deliver shoppers to merchants that carried what the buyers were looking for.

Singh Cassidy co-founded financial services platform Yodlee in 1999 with five engineering co-founders, including Schwark Satyavolu and served as vice president of business development from 1999 to 2003. In 2014, Yodlee went public, trading under the ticker YODL.

In 2003, Singh Cassidy joined Google as the first General Manager for Google Local & Maps, which she launched. Between 2003 and 2009 she was Google's president of Asia Pacific and Latin America.

In 2009, Singh Cassidy left Google to become CEO-in-Residence at venture capital firm Accel Partners. Singh Cassidy was named CEO of Polyvore in 2010.

Joyus
In October 2010, Singh Cassidy had the idea for a new platform aimed at converging content and commerce through online video as a way to increase consumer engagement with products and drive direct purchases via the video. She founded JOYUS in January, 2011 in San Francisco. Joyus.com launched to the public in August, 2011. Singh Cassidy raised $7.9 million in seed funding from Accel Partners, Harrison Metal, Joel Hyatt, Venky Harinarayan & Anand Rajaraman. In 2013, JOYUS announced it had raised a second round of funding totaling $11.5 million from Interwest and Time Warner, as well as existing investors. In total, JOYUS raised $67 million in funding before being acquired by StackCommerce in September 2017.

#ChoosePossibility Project and theBoardlist
In May 2015, Singh Cassidy published an open letter, titled "Tech Women Choose Possibility", challenging the tech community to increase the rate of progress for women in the industry by leveraging its wealth of existing female talent. The letter was co-signed by 59 female entrepreneurs and investors. Singh Cassidy based the letter on her own experiences as a tech entrepreneur and research she conducted on 230 female founders and CEOs of tech companies.

Singh Cassidy launched theBoardlist, the first initiative of the #ChoosePossibility Project, on July 15, 2015. theBoardlist is an online marketplace that connects CEOs who are looking for board candidates with women who are peer-endorsed for private and public tech company boards. When it launched, theBoardlist included the names of over 600 women who had been endorsed by 50 investors and CEOs in the tech industry, from companies including Accel Partners, Greylock Partners, Twitter, Lyft and Box. On October 20, 2015, theBoardlist announced that it had facilitated its first placement of a woman to the board of a private tech company.

In August 2023, theBoardlist, which had grown to a pool of over 43,000 executives, was acquired by BoardProspects, a board recruitment solution for public and private companies. .

StubHub
Singh Cassidy was president of StubHub (a subsidiary of eBay), a leading global ticketing marketplace for live entertainment, from April 2018 until May 2020. She also served as a member of eBay’s global executive leadership team.

In 2020, Singh Cassidy and her team successfully helped lead and execute the sale of StubHub to Viagogo for $4.05 billion.

Xero
On November 10, 2022, Singh Cassidy was named as incoming CEO of Xero, the New Zealand-headquartered technology company and provider of cloud-based accounting tools for small and medium-sized businesses and accountants. Starting with Xero on November 28, Singh Cassidy formally became CEO in February 2023.

In March 2023, Singh Cassidy announced the removal of 700-800 roles across Xero, representing approximately 15% of the employee base.

Singh Cassidy hired new executives to Xero's leadership team in 2023, including Diya Jolly, formerly of OKTA and Google as Chief Product and Technology Officer; Michael Strickman, formerly of TripAdvisor and Uber as Chief Marketing Officer; and Ashley Hansen Grech, formerly of Square and Recharge, as Chief Revenue Officer.

In May 2024, Singh Cassidy announced Xero’s full year earnings to 31 March 2024 (FY24). Operating revenue increased 22% to NZD $1.7 billion, adjusted EBITDA increased 75% to NZD $526.5 million, with EBITDA of NZD $497.4 million (mainly impacted by the non-cash impairment of Xero Go of NZD $28.9 million). Free cash flow increased to NZD $342.1 million, with a free cash flow margin of 20.0%. As a result, Xero delivered a Rule of 40 outcome of 41.0%.

Personal life
Singh Cassidy is married to Simon Cassidy, a fellow Canadian and former hedge-fund manager who runs an independent investment firm. The couple have three children and live in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Organizations founded

 * Yodlee
 * Joyus
 * theBoardlist

Board member and advisor
Singh Cassidy serves as a public board director at Upstart. She previously served on the boards of TripAdvisor (TRIP), Ericsson (ERIC) , Urban Outfitters (URBN) J. Crew Group, Inc. (JCG) , StitchFix , and as an advisor to Twitter.

Honors

 * Featured on the cover of Forbes Australia's Women's issue, issue 11 (2024)
 * Named one of the "Silicon Valley 100" by Business Insider (2016, 2012 )
 * Featured in book, Good Leaders Learn: Lessons from Lifetimes of Leadership (2013)
 * Named one of "44 Female Founders Every Entrepreneur Should Know" by Mashable (2012)
 * Named one of "14 Incredible Women to Watch in Silicon Valley" by Business Insider (2012)
 * Included in Ad Age list of "Women to Watch" (2010)
 * Selected as TechFellow Awards’ first General Management Fellow in recognition of outstanding innovation in General Management (2009)

Notable Speaker

 * Keynote Speaker, Forbes Australia Women's Summit 2024
 * Keynote Speaker, Women in Retail Leadership Summit 2022
 * Keynote Speaker, Grace Hopper Conference 2019
 * Keynote Interview, Billboard Live Music Summit 2019
 * Keynote Speaker, Liberal National Convention 2018
 * Keynote Speaker, Montgomery Summit 2018
 * Keynote Speaker, Dreamforce 2016
 * Keynote Speaker, Retail Council of Canada, STORE 2015
 * Keynote Speaker at IRCE 2014 – Internet Retailer Conference & Exhibition
 * Keynote Speaker, D2C Convention 2014
 * Keynote Speaker, Stanford University's Entrepreneurship Thought Leadership Series, 2012
 * Speaker, AllThingsD Asia, 2011
 * Keynote speaker at DLDWomen, 2010
 * Keynote Speaker at India Conclave, 2007
 * Featured in book, Innovation nation : Canadian leadership from Java to Jurassic Park (2002)

Angel investing
Singh Cassidy is an angel investor whose investments include:
 * The Real Real
 * Soma Water
 * J. Hilburn