Atlassian, the maker of popular software project management tools JIRA and Confluence, has doubled the size of its board of directors, adding three new members, including a new chairman.
Previously, the board consisted of co-founders and co-CEOs Scott Farquhar and Mike Cannon-Brookes, as well as Rich Wong from Accel Partners. (Accel provided Atlassian’s $60 million Series A round of funding.) Apparently the board had no formal chairman, and Farquhar and Cannon-Brookes traded off serving as unofficial chair — because hey, if you’re already serving as co-CEOs, why not share chairman duties too? But a company spokesperson tells me Atlassian saw expanding the board as “a necessary step” in the company’s growth.
In the press release announcing the new members, Farquhar says Atlassian conducted “a long search” to find them. The new chairman will be Doug Burgum (pictured above), who was on the SuccessFactors board when the company went public in 2007. He became chairman in 2010 and served in that role until the company was acquired by SAP at the end of 2011. Burgum is also the former CEO and chairman of Great Plains Software.
The other additions to the board are Murray Demo (who has served as CFO for Adobe Systems, Dolby Laboratories, and LiveOps) and Accel’s Kirk Bowman (formerly executive vice president of worldwide sales for EqualLogic and VMWare).
Atlassian hasn’t followed the standard startup path to growth and maturity. It was actually around for eight years as a bootstrapped company before taking venture money, and it says it made $102 million in revenue last year without a single salesperson. The company also recently announced a marketplace for add-ons created by third-party developers.
Atlassian is a software company that provides innovative enterprise software solutions to a number of organizations. Originally founded in 2002 in Sydney, Australia, the company has quickly grown to establish a global presence with over 20,000 customers in over 134 countries. In addition to the effective enterprise solutions offered to its customers, Atlassian prides itself on its customer service and support. Indeed, the company has won numerous awards for its suite of software and the accompanying support.
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