First on GTY’s list of new appointments was TJ Parass as CEO. He held the same role at Questica, which he founded in 1998 to make budgeting and performance management software, before the company was merged with five others to form GTY a little more than a year ago. He is replacing Stephen Rohleder, who’s leaving the company.
The shuffle comes after GTY took out a $12 million loan in February and announced it was "reviewing a broad range of potential strategic alternatives."
According to a news release from GTY, Parass has been an asset for both products and people. Besides leading GTY’s budgeting products, which account for almost half the company’s revenue, the announcement said he helped “drive key channel partnerships” with GTY’s other five gov tech subsidiaries.
Those businesses are Sherpa, which also specializes in budgeting; Bonfire, which focuses on procurement and sourcing; eCivis, which does grant management; OpenCounter, for permitting and licensing; and CityBase, which facilitates payments for utilities and other services.
“(Parass’) knowledge from scaling the leading public sector SaaS budgeting solution over the last 20 years through multiple economic cycles makes him uniquely qualified for this role,” said Bill Green, a GTY director and one of GTY’s founding sponsors, in a statement. Green is set to become chairman of the board at GTY.
Parass said in a statement that under his direction as CEO, the company will continue investing in innovation and client-centric initiatives.
“We believe, especially in this environment, that the movement towards the public sector cloud has even more long-term momentum as citizens desire remote transaction processing and transparency, and governments need simple, cost-efficient online implementations that are secure,” he said.
The final appointment GTY announced today was David Farrell as COO. Farrell is the CEO and founder of Sherpa, GTY’s other budgeting software provider, which the news release said is the highest margin generator among GTY’s subsidiaries.
GTY’s strategy from the outset has been to acquire best-in-class government cloud software companies and put them under one brand, as Rohleder explained to Government Technology in February 2019. Looking ahead, GTY may be considering another transaction. Whether that might mean acquiring another company or being acquired is unclear, but in its February announcement company spokespeople said its alternatives could include entering into one or more transactions. The news release today reiterated the fact that this review is still ongoing.
“GTY is continuing to review strategic alternatives to strengthen not just our operating structure in these unprecedented times but also to best position the company to be cash flow breakeven and self-sufficient,” said Harry You, co-founder and vice chairman, in a statement. “Managing cash, continuing to accelerate strong organic growth driven by ROIC at each business unit, and effecting operational efficiencies will be TJ (Parass)’s top priorities in his new role. While today’s challenging business conditions create profound headwinds, we believe GTY has many strengths in this environment with our public sector focus, fundamentals of a strong SaaS business model, and TJ’s commitment to operate in a capital efficient manner.”
