22 Oct 2019 07:00
22 October 2019
Blue Prism Group plc
('Blue Prism' or 'the Company' or 'the Group')
Board Changes
Blue Prism is today delighted to announce that Dr Jason Kingdon has re-assumed the role of full-time Executive Chairman, a role he previously held prior to the Company's highly successful IPO in 2016, to accelerate Blue Prism's role as a platform for corporate adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) technologies.
Dr. Kingdon has been engaged with Blue Prism for over 11 years and has an unparalleled understanding of the product, its underlying technology, and the Group's ongoing strategic direction. He has a PhD in AI from University College London (UCL) and has been commercialising AI for over 25 years. Dr. Kingdon was co-founder of the Intelligent System Lab at UCL and Searchspace where he was CEO between 1993 and until its highly successful exit in 2005, when he sold the business to US private equity.
Kingdon had previously communicated his intention to step back from the Board of Blue Prism to focus on several AI projects, which have now largely been completed. The Board is confident in this new more commercial role, Dr. Kingdon's experience can accelerate the Group's stance in relation to rapidly evolving AI technology. As Executive Chairman Dr. Kingdon will assume direct reporting and leadership responsibility for Blue Prism's go-to-market and product functions
Alastair Bathgate will remain Chief Executive Officer and will focus the majority of his time on customer relationships, promotion of the Blue Prism brand and various strategic programmes. These responsibilities increasingly require dedicated and expert attention given the Group's rapid global growth and the increasing opportunities within the Group's existing customer base of over 1,400 (at 30 April 2019 and adjusted for the Thoughtonomy acquisition).
Kingdon and Bathgate will share responsibility for Investor Relations. These changes to the structure will become effective immediately.
With these changes the Board will have half its members as independent Non-Executive Directors. Further to ensure appropriate governance, Chris Batterham will assume the role of Non-Executive Deputy Chairman and remain as Senior Independent Director of the Group.
Alastair Bathgate, CEO commented:
"I am delighted that Jason is taking on this new exciting role; we have collaborated for over 11 years, he was one of the first to recognise the market opportunity and help Blue Prism enter its growth phase. Jason supported us as we developed and launched one of the most important technologies to emerge from the UK in decades. It is great to be working together full-time again and it completes another successful year for Blue Prism. A full update on our trading performance will be issued on 21 November."
Jason Kingdon, Executive Chairman commented:
"I have been working with Alastair and Dave Moss for over 11 years and it's exciting to be back with operations as I believe we are on the cusp of RPA being recognised as the platform of choice for all corporate AI. As an AI technologist it is an amazing time to really promote, execute and accelerate technologies, methods and ideas that have now matured into powerful corporate capabilities. RPA is, in my mind, AI for business and will be the channel through which this powerful fast-evolving technology breaks through to mainstream business."
FUTURE REPORTING
Blue Prism will publish a trading update for the year ended 31 October 2019 on 21 November 2019.
CONTACT DETAILS
For further information please contact:
Blue Prism Group plc
Tom Hull, Head of Investor Relations +44 (0)77 3670 7407
Investec Bank plc +44 (0)20 7597 5970
Andrew Pinder
Sebastian Lawrence
Carlton Nelson
FTI Consulting +44 (0)20 3727 1000
Matt Dixon
Dwight Burden
ABOUT JASON KINGDON
Jason has been commercialising AI for over 25 years. He has a PhD from University College London and was co-founder of UCL's Intelligent Systems Lab. He co-founded and was CEO of Searchspace, a company which pioneered big data analytics introducing intelligent transaction monitoring for Anti Money Laundering for many of the world's top tier banks. Searchspace was multi-award winning for both technology and revenue growth and its technology was also endorsed by the American Banking Association as the preferred technology for AML detection. Jason led a highly successful exit in 2005 and has since been a member of UCL Enterprise Board, has set-up his own private AI research lab and became an early backer to Blue Prism. He is a former EY entrepreneur of the year, author and editor of AI books, papers and patents.
Most recently Jason has focused on the launch of UCL's ConceptionX program, the world's first academic programme for deep-tech commercialisation, allowing young entrepreneurs to build technology start-ups from leading research labs. The 2nd Cohort from ConceptionX went live on October 10th. This program now offers the basis for a vital commercialisation resource for the whole of the UK's research community.
Furthermore, Kingdon's AI start-up GlassAI fulfilled an open-web machine language understanding project, pioneering new AI language techniques. GlassAI now has active collaborations with the OECD, the Office for National Statistics, the London Business School, NESTA, EY and the Department for Business, Energy & Industrial Strategy, examining how this technology delivers a new capability for live monitoring of economic activity using the world wide web as primary research material.
ABOUT BLUE PRISM
In this digital era where start-ups are constantly disrupting markets, only the most agile and innovative enterprises survive and thrive. At Blue Prism, we pioneered Robotic Process Automation (RPA), emerging as the trusted and secure intelligent automation choice for the Fortune 500 and the public sector. Now we bring you connected-RPA supported by the Digital Exchange (DX) app store-marrying internal entrepreneurship with the power of crowdsourced innovation.
Blue Prism's connected-RPA can automate and perform mission critical processes, allowing your people the freedom to focus on more creative, meaningful work. More than 1,400 global customers leverage Blue Prism's Digital Workforce deployed in the cloud or on premises as well as through the company's Thoughtonomy SaaS offering, empowering their people to automate billions of transactions while returning hundreds of millions of hours of work back to the business. Visit www.blueprism.com to learn more about Blue Prism (AIM: PRSM).