The current CEO of Pulsant, Mark Howling, has been with Pulsant for seven years, having founded the business in its current form. During this period, revenues have grown from ?10m to ?75m, and the company continues to have excellent prospects ahead.
Pulsant is on a journey which, together with its primary shareholders Oak Hill Capital Partners and Scottish Equity Partners, Mark has stewarded exceptionally to this point. Over the medium-term, however, Mark has expressed an interest in pursuing additional business opportunities. It is with this foresight that, in the second half of 2016, the Board and Mark agreed to work to identify a new CEO who was able to stay involved with the business over a long-term horizon. This process has now reached a successful conclusion and, with effect from 21st August, Niclas Sanfridsson will become CEO of Pulsant, and Mark will become a non-executive director and remain a major shareholder.
Niclas was until recently Managing Director of Equinix in the Nordic Region, having spent 15 years with TeleCity, TelecityGroup and then more recently Equinix following its acquisition of Telecity. During this time he has built the business in the Nordics from one empty data centre to nine heavily utilised facilities. Prior to this he was Sales Director for WorldCom in Sweden and has also worked with Telia Financial Services. He has extensive experience of running businesses offering data centre and managed IT services.
Mark Howling commented “I am very proud of what we have achieved so far at Pulsant, and there are significant market opportunities to enable the business to develop much further. However, now is the right time to bring in a new leader who can take the business through the next phase of its development”.
Niclas commented “It is an incredible honour to be asked to become CEO at Pulsant and it is with great pleasure that I have accepted the role. I look forward to working with everyone in Pulsant to continue to build on its success.”
In addition, Graeme Mackenzie, CFO, has been with Pulsant in one form or another for over 15 years. He has been instrumental in helping the business to grow and develop, both organically and through acquisition, and remained with the business both times it has been acquired by new shareholders, including the current owners. However, he would now like to take a break from active business and spend more time with his family, pursuing a range of hobbies, sports and other non-work interests. Consequently, following an extensive recruitment process, Brad Petzer will take up the role of CFO for Pulsant on 6th September, 2017.
Brad was until recently CFO at Mercator Solutions, a Warburg Pincus backed software and BPO services provider to the aviation and shipping industries, where he helped to significantly transform and develop the business, before closing another major transaction for its PE backers. Prior to this he was CFO at Monitise plc for 3 years, a publicly quoted mobile payments company, and before that he held various senior finance roles at Telecity.
