Simon O'Kane Chief Revenue Officer, Yokoy
Previously
Investor and Board Advisor, YapsterInvestor and Non Exec Chair of the Board of Directors, Quber Tech
Investor and Non-Executive Director, TruRating
Company
Yokoy is an award-winning Swiss FinTech company that leverages Artificial Intelligence to fully automate spend management (expenses, supplier invoices and corporate credit/debit cards) for midsize and large corporations globally. Founded in 2019, the company counts over 500 clients including DPD Group, ASK Chemicals, On and BitPanda, resulting in the spend management optimization of over 80,000 employees , building the team to over 100 employees.
In March 2022, Yokoy announced a Series B funding round of $80m, led by Sequoia Capital with Speedinvest, Visionaries Club and Zinal Growth all participating. Existing investors Balderton Capital, Six FinTech Ventures, Left Lane and Swisscom Ventures also joined the round.
Search Background
Having recently completed their Series B raise, Yokoy were looking to make their first external appointment to the senior management team. With aspirations to rapidly scale ARR, continue to internationalize and further establish their enterprise credentials, the time felt right to hire an experienced CRO to partner the Founders on the next phase of the journey.
Requirements
The requirement was to hire a proven, international leader who would be responsible for the performance of all revenue generating functions. This person would be able to demonstrate an appreciation for Yokoy’s stage of maturity, hyper-growth DNA, a strong enterprise pedigree and a background in world-class SaaS companies.
Result
Simon O’Kane joined Yokoy as Chief Revenue Officer in December 2022. He previously led the International business at Asana, with responsibility the EMEA and APAC regions. He joined Asana from Qualtrics, where he served as MD EMEA. In his earlier career, Simon was CRO at Huddle and UK MD at Salesforce.
Philippe Sahli
Co-Founder & CEO
The Erevena team did a brilliant job throughout the search. We were impressed with their tenacity, market knowledge and level of connectivity. Across the search, Joe and Jack introduced us to an impressive range of candidates and we were delighted to secure Simon as CRO. We look forward to working together again!
