February 8, 2016 For more information, contact:
Jessica Hoffman, VP of Communications, 510-301-8181 jhoffman@zenefits.com Kenneth Baer, 202-701-6229 ken@crosscutstrategies.com
ZENEFITS NAMES DAVID SACKS CEO
SAN FRANCISCO, CA-- Zenefits, the nation’s leading HR automation platform for small businesses, today announced that David Sacks has been named Chief Executive Officer, succeeding the company’s founder Parker Conrad, who has agreed to step down as CEO and a Director of the Company. Sacks joined Zenefits a year ago as Chief Operating Officer, having previously served as the founder and CEO of Yammer, as the first Chief Operating Officer of PayPal, and as an early investor in such companies as Facebook, Uber and Airbnb. The Board of Directors, which includes co-founders Conrad and Laks Srini, made the unanimous decision to appoint Sacks CEO. “David is a strong leader who will take Zenefits to the next stage of development, as it evolves from a startup to a large-scale national leader,” Conrad said. “I am immensely proud of the organization we have built and the industrywide impact we’ve had but recognize that our company’s management infrastructure and policies haven’t kept pace with our meteoric growth. Elevating a strong management hand with successful experience and impeccable credentials is without a doubt in the best interests of the company at this time.” “I am excited by this opportunity to lead Zenefits and build on its legacy as a national leader in HR technology, especially for small businesses,” Sacks said. “I am also committed to a top-to-bottom review to ensure best-in-class corporate governance, compliance, and accountability to our customers, employees, and other key constituencies." Sacks said that the company is taking a series of steps to strengthen its internal policies, procedures and controls, including the appointment of its first Chief Compliance Officer. Joshua Stein, a former federal prosecutor and a VP of Legal at the company, has been named Chief Compliance Officer of the company. In his new role, Stein is charged with ensuring that Zenefits is in compliance with all rules and regulations. Stein will continue to oversee a comprehensive review that Zenefits began last year by a Big Four accounting and consulting firm to assess the company’s operations, processes and policies related to broker licensing compliance. As part of this process, the company is in regular communication with the departments of insurance in all 50 states.
“Zenefits’ goal is to create best-in-class compliance, and I have every confidence that Josh will bring the same rigor to our compliance process as he brought to his previous job as a federal prosecutor,” Sacks said. “We are committed to having robust administrative and technical controls in place that ensure strict and total compliance.” “Since we invested, Zenefits has gone from an idea to a real business of a scale few startups reach. But the magical product-market fit means the company has not even made a dent yet in the total potential to become the operating system of businesses” said board member Lars Dalgaard, a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz. “David Sacks has a proven track record as an operator and has shown that he has natural and unique instincts for building defensible products and fostering an inspiring, positive, productive company culture, and very valuable lasting businesses. In addition to having the full support of the board, David has won support across the Zenefits’organization, and I’m confident he is the right leader to take the company forward.” “These are the right moves at the right time,” said Srini, cofounder and CTO of Zenefits. “Parker had a vision and created a company to serve it. David has the management experience to lead this next phase of Zenefits.”
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BOUT
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ENEFITS
Zenefits is the leading cloud HR automation platform. Our mission: to make it effortless to manage your business and employees. Zenefits connects with (or helps you set up) your payroll, benefits, and other HR systems, so you can manage all your HR online, in one beautiful dashboard. After that, Zenefits doesn’t just get rid of paperwork; it gets rid of the work itself through HR automation. What used to take weeks — checking compliance boxes, updating payroll, on-boarding new hires, enrolling in health insurance — Zenefits now automatically handles for you and your employees. Zenefits does this without disruptive switching of legacy systems, for over 10,000 small-and medium-sized businesses across the United States. Zenefits was co-founded by Parker Conrad and Laks Srini. For more information, visit www.zenefits.com or follow Zenefits on Twitter: @Zenefits. ### 2