Odense, Denmark, 2^nd September 2024, open-source .NET CMS platform provider, Umbraco, has announced that it has appointed technology industry veteran, Mats Persson, as chief executive officer. Former CEO, Kim Sneum-Madsen, will remain on Umbraco’s board of directors.

Kim Sneum-Madsen served as CEO from 2019, when Umbraco had 56 employees. In the following years he has substantially grown the company, implemented processes that enabled the company to scale, invested in the development of Umbraco Cloud and regional hosting services around the world, overseen several acquisitions to strengthen the product offering, developed the partner network, and opened an office in the US. Umbraco is now among the top three web content management systems used in the UK public sector, and underpins digital platforms built for enterprises including Carlsberg Group, UK Power Networks, and the Council of the European Union.

Martin Henricson, Chairman of the Board at Umbraco, and Managing Director at software growth investor, Monterro, which acquired a majority stake in Umbraco in 2021, commented, “Umbraco has achieved consistent, strong growth over the past two years and Kim believes that now is the right time to hand over the baton. We are delighted to welcome Mats Persson as our new CEO. I’m confident that Mats’ extensive international experience and leadership will be invaluable as he, along with Umbraco’s staff, community, and partners, builds on Umbraco’s world-class solutions and continues its international expansion. We thank our outgoing CEO, Kim, for his outstanding work and achievements thus far for Umbraco and welcome him to the Board of Directors.”

Mats Persson brings thirty years of leadership experience, including senior roles within PWC and IBM and as the COO of Adform and CEO of digital start-up Cavai. With a Master’s degree in computer science, and a Bachelor’s degree in economics, he recognises the crucial factors that generate value and create sustainable growth within the technology sector, commenting:

“This is a really exciting time to be joining the company. Umbraco has steadily grown to 150 people, with its international presence reinforced by a well-established partner network, and a global community of highly-engaged open-source software contributors. Over the past thirty years of working in this industry I’ve seen that once a company reaches this size, that’s when it really gains momentum in the market.”

Persson also points to the growing adoption of open-source software within the enterprise and public sector as an opportunity for Umbraco to build on the growth achieved in the past year and increase its international expansion. “I’ve spent decades working with proprietary software enterprises and start-ups, so I am looking forward to applying my experience within an open-source CMS company that allows digital organisations the freedom to build exactly what they need. Umbraco is also a truly international company and that’s where I bring particular value, having worked in the UK, US, and Nordics.”

Persson observes that his leadership style of trusting his teams, and remaining approachable while being professional, also aligns well with Umbraco’s company culture: “Umbraco is branded as the friendly CMS. Those core values of making things easy for users, and taking care of its partners, open-source community, and people, are demonstrated at every level of the organisation.”

He highlights the power of the open-source community and digital agency partner network to extend Umbraco’s footprint and deliver local support to international organisations, “Umbraco already has partners and customers throughout the EU, UK, US, Australia and New Zealand, India, Vietnam, and Nepal and I’m looking forward to helping the company to build on that global presence. The open-source CMS platform is also highly flexible and scalable, giving customers the freedom to build digital experiences that meet evolving business needs. When we support our partners and help them to grow their business with solutions that solve customers’ problems, increase transactions, and enable transformation, everyone profits,” says Persson.