Leadership

Stephen is our Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Micro Focus board, positions he has held since 19 March 2018. Stephen joined Micro Focus in 2012, first serving as General Manager of the Product Group and Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for all software product and services offerings development, customer services, corporate marketing and strategy. In 2014, he was appointed as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, having responsibility for sales and marketing, product strategy, development and management, services and business operations.

Prior to Micro Focus, Stephen spent seven years at Dell, first building Dell’s Global Infrastructure Consulting Services organisation, and then leading its business in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before Dell, Stephen had 17 years’ experience at IBM, latterly serving as Vice President, Communications Sector with responsibility for the entire telco, media, and utilities industry portfolio. During his IBM career, Stephen held a number of Global, EMEA and UK senior management roles with experience spanning software and services, storage, and enterprise systems.

Matt is our Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Micro Focus board since 1 July 2021. Matt joined from William Hill plc, a sports betting and gaming business, where he was chief financial officer and member of the board. In December 2021, Matt was appointed as a non-executive director of Robert Walters plc. Matt has previously held several positions at National Express Group plc including group CFO and president and CEO of its North America business based in Chicago.

He was a director of transport, infrastructure and public company reporting at Deloitte LLP and began his career as an auditor in London. Matt brings considerable public company experience to Micro Focus including business transformation, acquisitions and divestitures, debt and rights issues and public reporting.

He is a graduate of Leeds University and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Susan is our Chief Human Resources Officer. She is responsible for leading the HR organisation in addition to managing business operations across the organisation including driving strategic initiatives.

Susan joined Micro Focus from Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE) Software in 2017 where she held the position of Vice President, Worldwide Indirect Sales. Previously Susan held the role of Vice President, Strategy & Planning, Chief of Staff to the EVP of HPE Software and prior to that was Vice President Worldwide Alliances & Channels, Big Data. Susan was recognised among CRN’s Power 100 Women of the Channel during her tenure.

Before joining HPE, Susan was Vice President at Oracle Corporation and earlier at Sun Microsystems, where she led regional and global services, indirect sales and functional organisations. At Sun, Susan previously led global legal teams with responsibility for sales, marketing, channel, supply chain and anti-trust matters. Susan graduated with a LL.B Honours degree and is a qualified attorney and mediator.

Nick Wilson is the Worldwide President of Sales for Micro Focus. Nick leads our Sales, Services, Support and Customer Success teams worldwide and is responsible for delivering on our commitment to our customers’ success. Through his leadership the teams at Micro Focus are jointly focused on offering effective solutions that drive value, and delivering a positive, seamless, end-to-end customer experience.

Nick has spent more than 30 years in the IT industry, having held several senior leadership roles, including Managing Director for UK and South Pacific for HP/HPE, President & CEO of EMEA Outsourcing (the UK & Nordics business for CSC), Managing Director at UNISYS UK, and General Manager of IBM’s Global Services business in the UK, Ireland and South Africa. Through this broad experience across sales, services, support, education and software development, Nick understands the complexities and challenges companies face in the ever-changing and evolving business where technology is critical.

In addition to his corporate contributions, Nick is a passionate STEM ambassador and vocational education advocate, and has worked with various institutions to develop programs to support science, engineering and technology careers.

Paul Rodgers is the Chief Operating Officer for Micro Focus and has a proven track record of success with pioneering board-level strategies that facilitate transformations across complex business landscapes. Paul supports the businesses by identifying areas for innovation and guiding strategic changes that improve efficiencies, reduce cost and deliver large-scale growth.

Prior to this role, Paul served as the Business Operations and Integration lead for Micro Focus, where he was responsible for overseeing the successful integrations resulting from the company's merger and acquisition activity. Paul joined Micro Focus in April 2008 as the Group HR Director, and prior to joining Micro Focus, Paul spent 17 years with IBM and four years as Managing Director of a successful Executive HR consultancy business with clients such as Dell, Unilever, Yahoo and Sainsbury's.

Eric is the Chief Marketing Officer for Micro Focus. Eric joined Micro Focus in 2014 as part of the acquisition of the Attachmate Group where he had served as Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for Novell and Attachmate. Eric joined the Attachmate Group in 2003 and has held a variety of leadership positions across Marketing, Product Management, and Sales.

Eric has over 30 years of experience in the IT industry working for both startups and large companies across a variety of market sectors including Call Center automation, Process Automation, and Collaboration Solutions. Eric holds a bachelor's degree from the University of Washington.

Rohit is currently the Senior Vice President, General Manager of the IT Operations Management Product Group and the Application Delivery Management Product Group. Rohit also leads the CTO office and Product Security at Micro Focus. Rohit and his team are responsible for developing and delivering enterprise-scale IT management solutions that integrate with, and work alongside, legacy and cloud tools to simplify the complexity of managing hybrid IT environments, reliably scaling Agile and DevOps across all your environments from mainframe to cloud, and accelerating application delivery at high speed with low risk.

Prior to this role, Rohit served as the President and Chief Executive Officer at Actian Corporation. While there, Rohit oversaw the transformation of this global organization, serving over 3,000 customers, bringing a unified approach to the next generation of hybrid data management. Prior to this, Rohit was President and acting CEO at Beyondcore where he refocused the product and GTM strategy of this analytics and smart data discovery firm and was also VP & GM of HPE Software’s Information Analytics (IDOL) business.

Rohit holds dual master’s degrees in engineering from the University of California at Berkeley and an undergraduate degree in engineering from Madras University in India.

John Delk is currently the Senior Vice President and General Manager of the CyberRes (Security) Product Group at Micro Focus. Prior to this role, he served as Chief Marketing Officer and Chief Product Officer. John joined Micro Focus in 2014 as part of the acquisition of the Attachmate Group where he had served as Vice President of Product Management and Marketing for NetIQ. Prior to that, he spent seven years in various leadership positions at Novell in product management, sales, and services.

John has over 34 years of experience in the IT industry working for numerous other companies holding roles including Managing Partner at BearingPoint/KPMG Consulting and a Vice President at EDS. He holds a master's degree in Computer Science from Georgia Institute of Technology and a bachelor's degree from Furman University with a double major in Mathematics and Computer Science.

Neil Fowler leads the Application Modernization and Connectivity (AMC) Product Group for Micro Focus. Neil joined Micro Focus in 1991 and played a key role in R&D as a technical architect in Enterprise Solutions. With significant experience of helping hundreds of customers deliver modernization projects he has been at the forefront of product architecture and strategy across COBOL, Mainframe Solutions, CORBA and Host Connectivity.

Over the past 25 years Neil has held a number of different leadership roles responsible for strategy, acquisition integration and product design and delivery. Prior to his current role, Neil was Vice President for Engineering in AMC. He has a degree in Physics and Computer Science from Brunel University.

Scott Richards is the Vice President and General Manager of the Information Management & Governance (IM&G) and Vertica product groups at Micro Focus. Prior to this role, he served as the Vice President of Worldwide Engineering for the IM&G product group. Scott joined Micro Focus in 2014 as part of the acquisition of the Attachmate Group where he served as Senior Director of Engineering as well as in several other leadership roles.

Scott has over 25 years of experience in the high-tech industry working for both startups and large corporations including leadership roles at 3Com and VP of Product Development and Marketing at Senforce Technologies. Scott holds a master’s degree in International Management from Thunderbird School of International Management at Arizona State University and a bachelor’s degree from Utah State University with a major in Marketing and a minor in Japanese.

Suzanne is Company Secretary and Head of Assurance. She is a solicitor with over 30 years expertise in M&A, governance, compliance, risk and assurance. Previous positions held have been Group General Counsel at Wickes plc, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at The Big Food Group plc, General Counsel and Company Secretary at Morse plc, General Counsel and Company Secretary at Parity Group plc and Compliance Partner at King Sturge LLP (now part of JLL). She is a member of The Law Society of England and Wales. Suzanne is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.

Lars Rossen drives the overall Micro Focus technology and integration strategy as well as driving the implementation of the Digital Factory for Micro Focus. The Micro Focus Digital Factory and Digital Value Stream architecture was invented by Lars and is the basis for the IT4IT™ Reference Architecture which is now an international standard managed by The Open Group. Lars serve as the Chair of the governing board of the Open Group.

Before joining Micro Focus, Lars worked for the Hewlett Packard Enterprise CTO organization driving the HPE software portfolio architecture and strategy. Lars had many leading roles in defining and implementing the IT management solution portfolio. Lars was part of the core team that defined HPE's CloudSystem strategy and associated solution portfolio.

Prior to joining the HPE portfolio strategy office, Lars headed up HPE’s Operational Support System practice for Europe, Middle East and Africa.

Lars holds an MS in engineering, an executive MBA with focus on technology management, and a PhD in computer science from the technical University of Denmark.

Janet McCarthy is Chief Legal Officer of Micro Focus and is also Micro Focus’ Chief Compliance Officer, positions she has held since March 2022. In these roles, she oversees Micro Focus’ global legal activities, and policies, as well as ethics, compliance and regulatory affairs, investigations, and brand protection.

She is a graduate of the Australian National University and admitted as a solicitor in England and Wales, an attorney in New York and solicitor in New South Wales, Australia.

Chairman since February 2020.

Before embarking on his adventures as a PLC Chairman, Greg enjoyed 30 years at the IBM Corporation. There he served, inter alia, as assistant to the Chairman, a member of the IBM Worldwide Management Council, Governor of the IBM Academy of Technology and Global General Manager for Industrial Sector. In that role he had P&L responsibility for a $12 billion unit representing about 15% of the Corporation’s revenues.

In his second career he has been Chairman of FTSE-listed companies Orchestream, SurfControl, Kofax, UBM, Computacenter, and Deputy Chairman of Informa.

Greg holds an MA in Natural Sciences from Churchill College, Cambridge, where he is a Fellow and member of the Development Board. Greg, together with his wife, Rosie, have established a charitable foundation aimed, inter alia, at supporting education for the less privileged. Through the foundation they have endowed Lock Bursaries at Churchill, aimed at supporting less financially advantaged state school pupils to pursue STEM subjects.

Stephen is our Chief Executive Officer and a member of the Micro Focus board, positions he has held since 19 March 2018. Stephen joined Micro Focus in 2012, first serving as General Manager of the Product Group and Chief Marketing Officer, responsible for all software product and services offerings development, customer services, corporate marketing and strategy. In 2014, he was appointed as Chief Operating Officer and Executive Director, having responsibility for sales and marketing, product strategy, development and management, services and business operations.

Prior to Micro Focus, Stephen spent seven years at Dell, first building Dell’s Global Infrastructure Consulting Services organisation, and then leading its business in Europe, Middle East and Africa. Before Dell, Stephen had 17 years’ experience at IBM, latterly serving as Vice President, Communications Sector with responsibility for the entire telco, media, and utilities industry portfolio. During his IBM career, Stephen held a number of Global, EMEA and UK senior management roles with experience spanning software and services, storage, and enterprise systems.

Matt is our Chief Financial Officer and a member of the Micro Focus board since 1 July 2021. Matt joined from William Hill plc, a sports betting and gaming business, where he was Chief Financial Officer and member of the board. In December 2021, Matt was appointed as a Non-executive director of Robert Walters plc. Matt has previously held several positions at National Express Group plc including group CFO and president and CEO of its North America business based in Chicago.

He was a director of transport, infrastructure and public company reporting at Deloitte LLP and began his career as an auditor in London. Matt brings considerable public company experience to Micro Focus including business transformation, acquisitions and divestitures, debt and rights issues and public reporting.

He is a graduate of Leeds University and a member of the Institute of Chartered Accountants in England and Wales.

Richard is Chairman of Acora, an IT Services outsourcing company and YSC, an international Leadership Development company. He has spent the majority of his career within the IT industry.

Previously, he was a director at Data Sciences where he led its MBO from Thorn EMI in 1991 and then managed its successful sale to IBM in 1996. His final role at IBM was as General Manager for IBM Global Services Northern Europe where he was also a member of the IBM worldwide senior leadership team. Since leaving IBM in 2005 he has acted as a non-executive director for several companies including Aon, Compel, Message Labs, Global Crossing, Morse and Easynet. Richard qualified as a Chartered Accountant with EY.

Amanda is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Hiscox Ltd, a FTSE 250 business and specialist insurer with offices in 14 countries.

Amanda has more than 20 years of international HR experience in a variety of industries, including consumer goods, leisure, hospitality, and financial services. Prior to Hiscox, Amanda held a number of leadership roles with Mars, PepsiCo, and Whitbread plc. She has expertise in human resources, remuneration strategy, and managing organisations through periods of significant change.

Lawton is an investment banker and a highly experienced corporate director. She currently serves on the boards of Ciena Corporation, The Progressive Corporation and The Carlyle Group, and was previously a non-executive director at ARM plc and Thomson Reuters. Lawton worked at Goldman Sachs for over 23 years in investment banking, equities and asset management, and for more than a decade she led the equity capital markets team, focused on technology companies. She was elected a Partner in 1994 and worked in the London and New York offices.

From 2002 to 2005 Lawton was the Secretary (Chief Executive Officer) of the Royal Academy of Arts in London, and has served as a trustee for a number of not-for-profit organisations and foundations, including the Goldman Sachs Foundation and the Thomson Reuters Foundation. She received her undergraduate degree in European History from Brown University and her MBA from the Darden School of the University of Virginia.

Robert is a board member at a small number of growth companies in the technology sector and an operating executive at Marlin Equity Partners. Robert previously served as Executive Vice President and General Manager of HP Software at Hewlett Packard Enterprises (“HPE”). During his tenure at Hewlett Packard, Robert was a member of HP’s Executive Council, as well as a Senior Vice President.

Prior to his work at HPE, Robert was a Senior Vice-President of Microsoft and President of Microsoft North America. He has held senior leadership positions at Sun Microsystems and IBM. Robert holds a Master’s degree with honours in Physics and Philosophy from Oxford University.

Pauline is a recently retired PricewaterhouseCoopers Audit Partner who worked with company boards across a number of industries, both private and publicly owned. Pauline has experience of companies going through business cycles of trading, acquisition, disposal and raising finance. She has worked internationally across a broad range of sectors including IT services and support services amongst many others. As an Audit Partner, Pauline has wide experience of risk and quality assessment.

Pauline also served on the Governance Board of the UK firm including the Public Interest Body and the equivalent body at PwC’s Global Network, so brings a wealth of governance experience and has recently been appointed to the Board of Computacenter plc as a non-executive director.

Pauline was a Trustee for a social business that supports young adults in achieving their potential and is currently a Trustee for Catch 22 Multi Academy Trust and the Latymer Foundation.

Debra Polishook is the former Group Chief Executive of Accenture Operations where she led the company’s $6 billion operations business which employed more than 130,000 people across Infrastructure, Cloud, Security, Sales, BPO and Marketing. Debra has served as a member of the company’s Global Management Committee.

Debra also served on the Board of Avanade, a technology solutions and managed services provider and an Accenture/Microsoft Joint Venture. Debra currently serves on the Boards of Wawa, Globality and Trinity Consultants. Debra also serves on the C200 Board, a non-profit focused on the advancement of women in business.

Vidya Rao is a highly experienced executive in the professional services industry with extensive experience in technology transformations. She is currently the CIO and Senior Vice President at Genpact which employs more than 100,000 people and provides a broad range of consulting and transformation services.

She has more than 28 years of technology consulting, delivery and leadership experience. Prior to joining Genpact, Vidya was with Accenture for over 16 years, where she performed diverse roles and led several technology engagements for some of the company’s largest clients across financial services and consumer goods industry.

Suzanne is Company Secretary and Head of Assurance. She is a solicitor with over 30 years expertise in M&A, governance, compliance, risk and assurance. Previous positions held have been Group General Counsel at Wickes plc, Group General Counsel and Company Secretary at The Big Food Group plc, General Counsel and Company Secretary at Morse plc, General Counsel and Company Secretary at Parity Group plc and Compliance Partner at King Sturge LLP (now part of JLL). She is a member of The Law Society of England and Wales. Suzanne is also a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts, Manufactures and Commerce.