Crayon shakes up rhipe leadership team

Melbourne based distributor rhipe has new leadership today following the departure of Mark McLellan.

McLellan, who served as chief financial and chief operations officer has left the company, making way for Crayon’s head of APAC Rhonda Robati, who will assume leadership responsibilities at the licencing and cloud specialist.

Crayon acquired rhipe in October last year after shareholder approval. In November, long-time CEO Dominic O'Hanlon stepped down, leaving McLellan in charge. Crayon said he will continue with the company during the transition to support the integration of the two companies.

The combined organisation now has close to 1000 employees, with operations in Australia, New Zealand, Singapore, Sri Lanka, the Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia, Japan, South Korea, and Thailand.

“Mark has made an incredible impact on rhipe with his approachable leadership style and focus on achieving great outcomes,” Crayon CEO Melissa Mulholland said.

“We appreciate his significant contribution and wish him every success for the future.”

McLellan has been with rhipe for more than five years and has been the spearhead of the integration of the two companies.

“I am proud of what we have collectively achieved here at rhipe,” McLellan said.

“This next stage of evolution is a fantastic opportunity for all our people and partners and I wish the combined rhipe and Crayon teams all the very best for the future.”

Robati leads will now lead the combined business from Sydney, she has been with the company for more than two and a half years and prior to that held senior leadership positions at NetSuite, Velpec, Geo Op and Salesforce.

“Rhonda is a people-first leader who has had an incredible, 20-year career of consistent successes in employee engagement, business growth, and innovation,” Mulholland said.

“Under her leadership, the combined organisation of rhipe and Crayon will deliver more services and solutions to our partners and end-customers.”

Robati said she was “honoured and humbled to be able to support our combined organisations”.

“One thing I have learned in the past 20 years in leadership is that; ‘Good to Great’ is achieved through people. Therefore, I strive to put the needs of employees first and will provide the key support needed to continue to grow even closer as one team.”

“The strategic relationships that we share with our partners and clients will continue to grow in 2022,” said Robati. “Having a combined entity that includes a complementary business model and unprecedented technical expertise, positions us to bring more advanced solutions and services to the market.”