MAIS.L Regulatory News (MAIS)

19th February 2014

blur Group expands global Finance and Payments teams

New roles to support future growth in core processes, systems and reporting

Resignation of Director

blur Group today announced an expansion of its global finance and payments teams as it scales processes and systems to support the next phase of blur's growth. There are extended remits for existing team members and new senior appointments in the Projects & Payments function and in blur's Southern California strategy team.

Mitch Faigen becomes Chief Strategy & Finance Officer. Mitch commenced his career at Booz Allen and joined blur Group at the end of 2012 with over 15 years' experience as CFO for companies in the media, technology and real estate industries, most recently as CFO for SDI Media Group, a private equity backed language translation technology firm which was exited successfully through a trade sale. This new role combines his current strategic planning, measurement and forecasting remit with all internal accounting, reporting and management information requirements. Mitch will also lead blur Group's strategic initiatives.

Stuart Chun has joined this team as Senior Analyst Strategy and Business Intelligence focusing on blur's key Exchange initiatives. Stuart's early career began at Oracle and he has worked on major data and information initiatives for companies including United Healthcare Group, Edwards Lifesciences and most recently Spectrum Pharmaceuticals. Mitch and Stuart are based in blur's Strategy Center in Southern California working closely with the global finance teams.

James Porter, who joined blur's HQ in Exeter as Group Financial Controller, will manage all internal finance functions, working with Mitch to deliver budgetary and board reporting. In this extended role James also takes ownership of the day to day management of the Finance team and processes.

Barbara Spurrier, blur's Director of Financial Reporting, having led the finance function through blur Group's last 5 years of audits and its IPO in 2012, becomes responsible for external financial reporting including annual and interim results, governance, audit, internal audit and IFRS reporting. Barbara is also Chairman of blur's Revenue Recognition board subcommittee which reports to the Audit committee chaired by Robert Brooksbank. Barbara continues in her role as Company Secretary.

For family reasons, James Davis is not able to relocate to blur's Global HQ. He resigns as a Director and will perform a structured handover of his finance responsibilities to Mitch and Barbara.

The plc Board comprises Philip Letts, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer, Barbara Spurrier, Director, Financial Reporting and Company Secretary, Kara Cardinale, Chief Community Officer, and Non-Executive Directors Richard Bourne-Arton, Robert Brooksbank and David Sherriff.

Lucy Davies, who recently joined blur Group from Experian and started her career at Cazenove, will lead blur's financial PR and investor relations support, extending her current role as Head of PR.

In a further new appointment, Michelle Cameron, who recently completed an Executive MBA at Exeter University joins as Head of Project Delivery & Payments reporting to Kara Cardinale, Chief Community Officer. Michelle built her career at Thomson Reuters attaining senior global positions including Global Head of ETI Process Excellence and Global Content Infrastructure Service Manager. Michelle will head the team managing customer projects through to delivery and payment.

Philip Letts commented: 'These appointments reflect an increasing focus by blur Group on processes and planning as we move to the next phase of our phenomenal growth. The enterprise customer is a core focus for blur in 2014 and these customers bring with them new requirements for more advanced payments, billing, financial reporting and compliance as increasingly sizeable and complex projects are undertaken through blur's exchange. With a major new finance system being implemented in the next 2 quarters, we are bringing more world class people and infrastructure to blur's world class technology business.

It is particularly satisfying that these key appointments are primarily internal and reflect the depth and expertise within blur; both Mitch and Barbara's extensive knowledge of blur Group will enable us to deliver on our global strategy, financial excellence and internal and external governance requirements. As blur continues to evolve and grow the board will continue to ensure that we have the best people in the right roles to support the continued development of the business. I would like to thank all the teams for their hard work transitioning blur Group to this point and James Davis in particular for his support to date.'

For further information please contact:

About blur (Group) plc at blurgroup.com

blur Group is a technology company reinventing how businesses do commerce at blurgroup.com. Its Global Services Exchange uses blur's proprietary s-commerce platform to enable approaching 40,000 business users in 141 countries to buy, sell and deliver core business services and take advantage of Software as a Transaction™ to pay for these projects.

blur Group (BLUR) is a public company headquartered in the UK with offices in the US and Europe. It is listed on the London Stock Exchange's AIM market. blur was founded in January 2006 and launched in alpha in 2007 with the full, formal launch of the Global Services Exchange in January 2010. At that time, just over three projects per month were submitted. Now, over 200 projects start on the exchange each month. Customers include Danone, Broadridge, Regus, Exceed, HCA, Momentive, Red Commerce, the Financial Times, Berlitz, Butlins, GE Healthcare and Tyco. Over the same time, average project value has grown from approximately $1,500 in 2010 to $89,000 in Q4 2013.

Today, over 4,000 projects have been submitted with a combined value of above $160 million. These have come from the US, UK, Europe, Africa and Asia with over 36,000 expert service providers in eight verticals responding to them.