BTAQ

Failed

Burgundy Technology Acquisition Corp

Raised
$300M
CIK
1815526
SPAC Ticker
BTAQU
Focus
Technology
External link: SEC Filings

SPAC Team

Leadership

Leo Apotheker, our Chairman and one of our Co-CEOs and a Director since our incorporation, also serves as the Chairman of Unit 4 (an ERP software company) and the Chairman of Syncron (an after-sales service solution provider), and as a Director (until April 2020 serving as the Vice Chairman and Lead Independent Director) of Schneider Electric SE (EPA: SU) (a diversified energy and digital automation company), P2 Energy Solutions (an energy-focused software company), Nice Systems (TLV: NICE) (a customer engagement and financial compliance software company), Taulia (a supply chain software company), and MercuryGate (a logistics optimization software company). Mr. Apotheker previously served on the Board of Directors of Signavio (a workflow software company).

Mr. Apotheker was appointed as the CEO and President of The Hewlett-Packard Company (NYSE: HPQ), or HP, and continued in that position until late 2011. Mr. Apotheker was also the CEO of the German software company SAP SE (NYSE:SAP) from April 2008 until early 2010 and its President and Deputy CEO in 2007. Mr. Apotheker joined SAP in 1988 as the CEO of SAP France and Belgium. After successfully managing the core EMEA region for SAP, he joined the SAP AG executive board in 2002 as President. It was under Mr. Apotheker’s leadership that the company became the global market leader in Enterprise Application software. During his 20 years at SAP, Mr. Apotheker helped transform SAP from a single product company to a multi-solution company, recognized as one of the leading software companies globally with more than €27 billion in revenue in 2019. Moreover, Mr. Apotheker was the driving force behind some of SAP’s most successful acquisitions, such as the acquisition of BusinessObjects in 2007 for $6.8 billion and the acquisition of TopManage that was subsequently rebranded as BusinessOne, one of SAP’s most profitable and successful product lines.

Mr. Apotheker graduated in Economics from the Hebrew University in Israel and is fluent in five languages.

We believe Mr. Apotheker is well-qualified to serve as a Director due to his extensive experience in the technology industry spanning the United States and Europe, his experience with public companies, his business leadership, his operational experience and his experience as a board member of several public and private companies.

Jim Mackey, one of our Co-CEOs and our CFO and a Director since our incorporation, worked as a Managing Director and the Chairman of the Software, Technology Investment Banking Group at Citigroup from October 2018 to May 2020. Mr. Mackey advised some of the leading enterprise software companies on potential M&A strategies, IPOs and debt placements. While at Citigroup, Mr. Mackey became a licensed Securities Principal and passed the SIE, 63, 79 and 24 exams. Prior to Citigroup, Mr. Mackey served in senior leadership roles at SAP, OpenText and BlackBerry. Mr. Mackey joined BlackBerry as an Executive Vice President, Executive Operations in December 2013 to help transform BlackBerry into a software-oriented company. During Mr. Mackey’s tenure at BlackBerry, he led and executed six acquisitions that transformed the company and evolved its mobile device management portfolio into a leading unified endpoint management portfolio. At BlackBerry, Mr. Mackey managed numerous functions, including overall corporate strategy and corporate development, Product Security, Secusmart, Encription, and the CIO operations and data centers. Prior to joining BlackBerry, Mr. Mackey was the Senior Vice President, Corporate Development for OpenText. During his time at OpenText, Mr. Mackey transformed the company by executing four acquisitions, including the acquisition of GXS ($1.1 billion). Prior to joining OpenText, Mr. Mackey was at SAP where he built and led the corporate development team, consisting of M&A strategy, execution and integration. Mr. Mackey executed some of SAPs largest acquisitions at the time, including the acquisition of Business Objects ($6.8 billion), Sybase ($5.8 billion) and SuccessFactors ($3.4 billion). During his career at SAP, Mr. Mackey was responsible for completing 44 acquisitions and more than $18 billion in transaction spend. Mr. Mackey started his career as an attorney and subsequently became licensed as a CPA while at Arthur Andersen.

Mr. Mackey received a BS in Accounting from Villanova University and his JD from Villanova University School of Law.

Mr. Mackey is well-qualified to serve as a Director due to his extensive investment experience, his operational experience and his experience in dealing with strategic matters of technology companies on a global scale.

Our Board of Directors consists of a diverse group of executives and seasoned investors that we believe are well-versed in the process of business opportunity pattern recognition. In addition to Messrs. Apotheker and Mackey, our Board of Directors upon the completion of this offering will include:

Franck Cohen, who will become an independent Director on completion of this offering, serves as Chairman of Trackunit (a telematics company) and Geektime (a digital online technology focused news portal company), and sits on the boards of SUSE (an open source software company), Antuit (an AI cloud SaaS company for retail), Acumatica (a cloud SaaS ERP for small businesses), Beqom (a compensation management software provider), Qvantel (a digital business support system provider) and Omada (an identity governance software company). He is also a board advisor of C3.AI and Workday.

Mr. Cohen was the President of SAP Digital Core & Industry Solutions until June 2019. In March 2017,, Mr. Cohen took over the responsibility for the newly created Digital Core organization within SAP, where the company decided to consolidate all product and development activities related to the different ERP solutions and the industry solutions with the objective to migrate from an on-premise to a cloud architecture and from a license and services model to a SaaS subscription model. In this role, Mr. Cohen led a team of 15,700 engineers and invested significantly in machine learning and artificial intelligence to catalyze digital transformation. Mr. Cohen joined SAP in 2009 as Senior Vice President, COO for EMEA and in 2011, he was appointed President of the EMEA region. Mr. Cohen began his career in 1987, where he launched an ERP software company in France. Ten years later, he joined Intentia, a Swedish ERP company, where he held several roles, including General Manager of EMEA and Executive Vice President of sales worldwide. In 2006, when Intentia merged with Lawson Software, Mr. Cohen remained with the new company as General Manager for EMEA. He subsequently relocated to the United States to lead the North American and the EMEA organization.

Mr. Cohen studied Mathematics and Electronic Engineering at Tel Aviv University.

Mr. Cohen is well-qualified to serve as a Director due to his extensive operational experience, and his experience in dealing with strategic matters of technology companies on a global scale.

Hervé Couturier, who will become an independent Director on completion of this offering, is a private investor and product strategy consultant. Mr. Couturier currently serves as the President of Kerney Partners (a consulting firm), and sits on the boards of Sabre (NASDAQ: SABR) (a travel technology company), SimCorp A/S (CPH: SIM) (a Danish investment management software provider), Infovista Inc. (a network software company), Unit4 (an Enterprise Resource Planning software company), Sportradar AG (a sports data company) and Kyriba Corp. (a treasury management software company). Mr. Couturier has held management positions at a number of IT companies including Business Objects (a business intelligence solutions provider, now part of SAP), S1 Corporation (a provider of payment software for financial institutions) and XRT (a European treasury management software company, now part of the Sage Group PLC). From 2012 to 2016, he was executive vice president, research and development, at Amadeus, an airline reservation systems provider. From 2007 to 2012, he was executive vice president of SAP AG’s technology group and head of research. Mr. Couturier began his career at IBM in 1982, where he held various engineering and business positions until 1997.

Mr. Couturier holds both an engineering degree and a Master of Science degree from the École Centrale Paris in France.

Mr. Couturier is well-qualified to serve as a Director due to his significant experience in solutions strategy, product strategy, product development and business management at software-based companies.

Raj Dani, who will become an independent Director on completion of this offering, has been the CFO of Ping since 2016. Ping provides leading technology solutions for enterprises to enable secure and seamless digital experiences for their workforce and customer identities. Mr. Dani is responsible for leading all financial functions as well as strategy and mergers and acquisitions at Ping, overseeing a period of significant revenue growth of the company while driving positive operating cash flows. He has led Ping’s successful IPO process, transitioning the company from financial sponsor-backed to a public listing on the NYSE in September 2019, and integrated three tuck-in acquisitions during his tenure at Ping including artificial intelligence API security software company Elastic Beam, directory and data governance software company UnboundID and identity proofing company Shocard.

Before joining Ping, Mr. Dani served as chief financial officer of AVI-SPL, Inc., a leading systems integration firm from 2014 to 2016. There he led a successful turnaround effort, enabling the sale of the company to a financial sponsor in 2016. Prior to that, Mr. Dani held senior financial management positions over thirteen years within global public technology services companies TTEC, Jabil and Flex. He began his career with PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP, serving in its audit and transaction advisory practices.

Mr. Dani is an actively licensed certified public accountant and has earned a master’s degree in accounting from the University of Florida and a bachelor’s degree in business administration from Emory University. During his career, Mr. Dani has gained extensive global business experience, including executing several acquisitions in Europe while on long-term assignments over five years in Zurich, Switzerland and Milan, Italy.

Mr. Dani is well-qualified to serve as a Director due to his extensive financial reporting, operational and advisory experience as well as his extensive global experience in technology companies.

Melissa Di Donato Roos, who will become an independent Director on completion of this offering, currently serves as the CEO of SUSE, the world’s largest independent open source software company, and sits on the board of Uccelli UK (a technology consulting company). As SUSE’s first female Chief Executive Officer, appointed in July 2019, Ms. Di Donato’s strategy is to double the company’s revenue from $500 million to $1 billion in the next three years. Prior to SUSE, Ms. Di Donato was the Global COO of the ERP division at SAP. She served as the EMEA and APJ Area Vice President for Salesforce.com, where she oversaw the creation of successful software solutions for the company. While at Salesforce.com, Ms. Di Donato was also responsible for the startup community and investments across Europe for companies building on the Force.com platform. At both SAP and Salesforce, Ms. Di Donato was instrumental in making acquired products successful in her geographies and areas of responsibility.

Ms. Di Donato currently sits on the board of directors of The Data Science Institute and Notion Capital, a venture capital firm that funds early-stage, fast-growing European SaaS and enterprise tech companies. An ardent supporter of diversity and inclusion, Ms. Di Donato also serves as the Technology Group Chair of the 30% Club, an organization with the goal of achieving 30% female directors on S&P 100 boards by 2023.

Ms. Di Donato completed her education at Manhattanville College, graduating with a BA in Political Science and Russian Translation, and at American University, Kogod School of Business, graduating with an MBA in International Business and an MA in Russian. Ms. Di Donato is fluent in three languages: English, Italian, and Russian, and is a children’s book author. She is the founder of the charitable foundation, Inner Wings, which is dedicated to empowering young girls to be confident and brave, and encouraging their journey to become strong and independent women.

Ms. Di Donato is well-qualified to serve as a Director due to her extensive investment experience, operational experience and her extensive experience in technology companies.