When Bench went looking for its next CEO, the Vancouver-based accounting software startup didn’t have far to search. Bench announced Friday that its current president and CFO, Jean-Phillipe Durrios, is the firm’s new CEO.
It’s unclear whether Durrios will retain his positions as president and CFO in addition to the role of CEO. BetaKit reached out for comment, and was still awaiting a reply at presstime.
Durrios has 20-plus years of finance and operations experience in the tech industry.
“When searching for a new CEO for Bench, the candidate that stood out was the one that was on our team already,” said Shawn Abbott, co-Founder at Inovia Capital, Bench board member, and chair of the search committee.
The CEO position at Bench became vacant in January when former CEO and co-founder Ian Crosby parted ways with his startup. The announcement coincided with the appointment of Durrios to the positions of president and CFO.
At the time when Crosby stepped down, Durrios said that the board wanted to make sure it found the right leaders to enable the startup to reach its full vision.
For his part, Crosby joined Shopify in February as product director of the company’s business banking offering, Shopify Balance.
Durrios has 20-plus years of finance and operations experience in the tech industry. He joined Bench from Disqo, where he acted as CFO and COO for the consumer insights platform. Before that, he led strategic finance and operations at vertical SaaS leader ServiceTitan during its growth phase.
Durrios has also held leadership positions at other tech companies, including MarketShare (acquired by Neustar), Yahoo! and Overture, the company that pioneered paid search.
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“We were committed to finding a leader that embodied the spirit and vision behind Bench,” said Jordan Menashy, Bench co-founder and board member. “JP was the clear choice, with his background propelling companies at our stage, the level of execution he’s brought already, and his deep commitment to realizing Bench’s potential to improve the lives of millions of business owners.”
Bench has raised over $100 million in funding to date from investors such as Bain Capital, Inovia Capital, Altos Ventures, Contour Ventures, Bank of Montreal, Sage, and Shopify.
Its most recent round was in mid-2021 when it raised almost $73 million CAD in Series C financing. That round also marked Shopify’s first investment in Bench.
Bench laid off 10 percent of its staff in 2020, citing the pandemic as the reason, but quickly rebounded when it saw an opportunity to help United States-based small businesses apply for Paycheck Protection Program loans.
At the time, Crosby said that while the startup experienced a “gut-wrenching drop” in sales at the start of the pandemic, Bench was able to turn itself around.
Feature image courtesy Bench.
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