By Ryan Weeks on Thursday 10 August 2017
Jeff Lynn transitions to executive chairman role.
Jeff Lynn (pictured) is stepping down from his role as CEO at Seedrs, five years on from launching the company. Former COO Jeff Kelisky has been promoted to CEO, while Lynn is transitioning to a role as executive chairman.
The move is said to have been in the works for 18 months. Lynn informed the board in early 2016 that he felt the company would benefit from a CEO with prior experience of leading “scale-up” transformations in high growth technology businesses. Seedrs believe Kelisky fits the bill.
The new boss Kelisky joined Seedrs as COO earlier this year. A technologist by background, Kelisky’s career highlights include the sale of online mapping services provider Multimap to Microsoft in 2007, during his tenure as CEO at the firm. Immediately prior to joining Seedrs he was CEO at image capture business Picsolve.
Lynn’s transition to executive chairman is somewhat reminiscent of former Zopa CEO Giles Andrews’ ascension to the role in 2015. Andrews was also succeeded by a man (current CEO Jaidev Janardana) who was initially hired as COO, seemingly with the intention of teeing up a switch in the future. Lynn will now chair the Seedrs board and will continue to serve as a full-time executive at the business.
“I am hugely excited about the transition we are announcing today. Jeff Kelisky is going to make an outstanding CEO, and I cannot fathom placing the company’s leadership into a better pair of hands,” said Lynn.
“Meanwhile, I am very much looking forward to serving as Executive Chairman, where I will have the chance to focus on major initiatives where I feel I can add most value to the business, and indeed where I can support and learn from Jeff’s leadership as the company pursue aggressive growth in the months and years to come.”
Seedrs is one of the largest equity crowdfunders in the UK, and claims to have had over £230m invested via the platform to date. It is backed by renowned fund manager Neil Woodford and Augmentum Capital, among others.
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