The Sage Group plc
Leadership History
5 leaders · 1981 to present
Steve Hare is the CEO of Sage Group, in the role since 2018. The first chief executive was Paul Walker, from 1994.
| Name | Role | From | To | Years in role |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Steve Hare | Chief Executive Officer | 2018 | Present | 8 |
| Stephen Kelly | Chief Executive Officer | 2014 | 2018 | 4 |
| Paul Walker | Chief Executive Officer | 1994 | 2010 | 16 |
| David Goldman | Co-Founder | 1981 | Present | 45 |
| Graham Wylie | Co-Founder & Executive Architect | 1981 | 2003 | 22 |
Sage is Britain's main home-grown business software company. Rather than chase large corporations, it focuses on small and mid-sized businesses: accountants, retailers, manufacturers, non-profits and service firms that need dependable bookkeeping, payroll and reporting. Operations are reported in three regions: North America, UKIA (UK, Ireland, Africa and Asia) and Europe. The company is headquartered in Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom.
Sage makes money mainly from software subscriptions. In FY25, recurring revenue was ~$3.22 billion (£2,436 million), or 97% of the ~$3.32 billion (£2,513 million) total, and software subscription revenue made up about 83% of the group. The remaining ~$102 million (£77 million) came mostly from professional services and licences. Products cover three needs: accounting and financial management (Sage Intacct, Sage 50, Sage 200, Sage Accounting), HR and payroll (Sage Payroll, Sage People, Sage HR), and add-ons such as AutoEntry data capture and AI features in Sage Copilot. Sage sells directly and through accountants and value-added resellers, who often recommend software to their small business clients.
Chief Executive Officer
2018 – Present
8 years (current)
Joined Sage as CFO in 2014 and became CEO in November 2018. Sold non-core businesses, including Sage Pay to Elavon for ~$306 million (£232 million) and operations in markets such as Brazil and Switzerland, focused investment on cloud subscriptions and Sage Intacct, and oversaw recurring revenue rising to 97% of the total by FY25.
Led Sage's shift to a focused cloud subscription business.
Chief Executive Officer
2014 – 2018
4 years
Kelly became chief executive in November 2014 and pushed the move to cloud subscriptions.
He bought Intacct in 2017. He left in August 2018 and Steve Hare succeeded him.
Chief Executive Officer
1994 – 2010
16 years
Walker became chief executive in 1994 at the age of 37.
He expanded Sage through more than 100 acquisitions and it joined the FTSE 100 in 1999. Guy Berruyer succeeded him in 2010.
Co-Founder
1981 – Present
45 years (current)
Ran a Newcastle printing business and in 1981 co-founded Sage with Graham Wylie and Paul Muller to sell estimating and accounting software. Led the company through the Amstrad era and its 1989 listing.
Founding businessman behind Sage.
Co-Founder & Executive Architect
1981 – 2003
22 years
As a Newcastle University student, wrote much of Sage's early software and helped build its desktop accounting and payroll products before leaving in 2003.
Technical co-founder of Sage.
Sage faces strong competition in accounting and finance software. It has to defend its small-business customers against cloud-native rivals such as Intuit QuickBooks Online and Xero, move its remaining desktop customers to the cloud without losing them, grow in Continental Europe where accounting rules differ by country, and add generative AI to its ledger products while keeping them auditable and compliant.
Steve Hare has served as Chief Executive Officer of The Sage Group plc since November 2018, having previously served as Chief Financial Officer since 2014.
A chartered accountant, Steve Hare held senior financial leadership roles across the UK, serving as CFO of Invensys plc, CFO of Spectris plc, and Operating Partner at private equity firm Apax Partners, before joining Sage as CFO in 2014.
Steve Hare orchestrated Sage's successful SaaS turnaround: divesting non-core payroll and regional units, growing subscription revenue to over 96% of sales, launching Sage Copilot, and driving Sage's market valuation to historic all-time highs above £12 billion.
Paul Walker joined Sage in 1984 as financial controller and served as CEO for 16 years from 1994 to 2010. Walker grew Sage from a modest UK accounting software maker into an international FTSE 100 powerhouse, executing dozens of acquisitions across North America and Europe.
Guy Berruyer (former head of Sage Europe) served as CEO from 2010 to 2014, focusing on initial cloud products, followed by Stephen Kelly (former UK Government COO and Micro Focus CEO) from 2014 to 2018, who initiated the acquisition of Intacct before departing in 2018.
Jonathan Howell has served as Chief Financial Officer (CFO) of Sage since December 2018, bringing extensive financial expertise from previous long-term roles as CFO of Close Brothers Group plc and London Stock Exchange Group.
Andrew Duff serves as Chair of the Board of Directors of The Sage Group, appointed in 2021 after distinguished corporate chairmanships at Elementis plc and Severn Trent plc.
Sage operates with regional presidents and managing directors overseeing North America (Mark W. Hughes), UK & Ireland, and Continental Europe, coordinated by the Executive Committee in Newcastle and London.
Hare advocates that SMBs are the foundational backbone of the global economy. He aligns Sage's corporate mission around "knocking down barriers" for entrepreneurs through automated compliance, prompt payment advocacy, and democratized AI tools.
Under Steve Hare, Sage maintained continuous remote cloud operations for millions of clients, created free statutory furlough calculation tools for UK businesses, preserved full employee job security, and accelerated cloud migration for customers.
Steve Hare has been consistently named among the top CEOs in the UK on Glassdoor's Employees' Choice Awards and recognized in the City of London as one of Britain's premier corporate turnaround leaders.
Through "Sustainability and Society," Sage established the Sage Foundation, granting thousands of volunteer days annually, funding diverse entrepreneurial education, and committing to Net Zero greenhouse gas emissions across operations by 2040.
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