Kaseya hires ‘passionate SME advocate’ as next CEO

MSP specialist Kaseya has concluded its search for a chief executive officer (CEO) replacement for Fred Voccola.

Rania Succar has been chosen as Kaseya CEO and will continue the work done by Voccola over the past few years to establish the company as a platform business that can cover a large range of managed services provider (MSP) needs.

She joins the firm after a nine-year spell at Intuit, including the position of head of QuickBooks Money, which stoked her passion for the small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) market. More recently, she enjoyed a stint as head of Intuit Mailchimp, but she also has time on her CV at Google, McKinsey and Merrill Lynch.

“I’m very excited about the opportunity to join Kaseya. It comes from my long-term focus on supporting the success of small businesses,” said Succar. “Kaseya has the opportunity and has already done so to play a unique role in small business success because of their relationships with MSPs.”

Succar said that the MSP community has a direct impact on the success of SME-sized customers, and she would be continuing to ensure Kaseya supported partners and delivered solutions.

“We will continue [to support MSPs] but also to accelerate it. We believe that Kaseya, with our MSP partners, can play a pivotal role,” she said. “That requires world-class innovation and velocity in bringing AI-powered offerings to partners and providing an industry-leading customer experience ... and it requires having the culture in Kaseya that fuels innovation and velocity.”

She added that she would be talking to MSPs and staff in the next few weeks to gain more knowledge of the business, but could already see the value of committing to future innovation.

“My time and focus will be to learn and spend time with MSPs and to accelerate [innovation],” she said. “We will not only build industry-leading software that helps MSP automate their function and make the right decisions to grow, but do so in combination with MSPs.”

Kaseya started its search for a fresh CEO at the start of the year after Voccola announced a move upstairs to take a position as vice-chairman.

He had been at the helm of the MSP technology specialist for the past decade and seen the firm through highs and lows, from suffering a highly publicised cyber attack to sealing significant M&A milestones by picking up the likes of Datto and building its Kaseya 365 platform, which generates more than $1.5bn in annual recurring revenue.

Mike Triplett, chairman of the board at Kaseya and managing director at Insight Partners, said the company had identified a CEO candidate who would spearhead the next phase of growth at the vendor.

“In our search for a new CEO, we sought a leader with the vision and capability to elevate Kaseya into one of the most essential platforms for MSPs and the broader SME technology ecosystem,” he said. “Rania’s bold leadership and track record in building and scaling innovative, customer-centric businesses for the SME market make her an ideal leader to guide Kaseya into its next chapter and potential IPO.”