SAN FRANCISCO (February 5, 2019) — Global Mobility Management (GMM) company Topia today announced its founder and CEO Brynne Kennedy has stepped aside as CEO, naming veteran Human Capital Management (HCM) executive Shawn Farshchi as her successor to lead the award-winning company into its next phase of growth.
Kennedy founded the talent mobility company 9 years ago, establishing an entirely new category of HR management technology that has since grown into a $32 billion market. An award-winning executive who has earned numerous accolades for her innovation and visionary leadership at Topia (and previously as MOVE Guides), Kennedy has successfully steered the company through two major acquisitions (Teleport and Polaris Global Mobility), international expansion, numerous product launches and integrations and a strategic rebrand.
Kennedy will continue as Chairwoman on Topia’s Board of Directors and will remain active in support of external-facing media and industry initiatives. Recognized as an industry visionary and champion of technology-enabled global mobility, Kennedy also has a book due out this year from McGraw-Hill outlining best practices and success strategies for building successful agile organizations and leveraging talent mobility as a strategic advantage.
“Building this company has been the most gratifying and humbling endeavor of my entire life, and I am eternally grateful for the energy and personal commitment our team has invested to make it such a success,” Kennedy said. “This transition is bittersweet, but at this point in Topia’s journey, Shawn’s proven track record in leading highly-successful public and private high-tech companies is exactly what we need to lead us into the next phase of growth.”
Farshchi is a seasoned executive with 30-plus years of experience in building, leading and advising highly-successful tech companies. An engineer by trade, Farshchi has served in executive leadership roles with Saba Software (acquired by Vector Capital), WebEx (acquired by Cisco), Oracle, Coremetrics (acquired by IBM), and Aryanka Networks, where he helped the company quadruple its revenue and customer base in less than three years.
His work spans a wide range of tech sectors from networking, managed services and SD-WAN-as-a-service to cloud-based talent management and marketing services platforms. Farshchi most recently founded Flype, Inc., providing an intelligent customer enablement platform to help companies build meaningful connections with their customers.
“I am extremely impressed with Topia’s SaaS-based approach to talent mobility and its strong market momentum and growth potential,” Farshchi said. “Brynne and her team have done an outstanding job of putting global mobility management on the must-have list for any successful company, and given the global nature of business, Topia is exactly the kind of comprehensive solution modern organizations need to drive future growth.”
Topia’s cloud-based Global Mobility Management platform eliminates friction and provides organizations with a 360-degree view of their mobile talent – unlocking tangible benefits. Topia does this by seamlessly bridging mobility and HR systems and also connecting to offline services improving efficiency, reducing cost, eliminating compliance risks and transforming the employee experience. Topia powers global mobility programs for many of the world’s most trusted brands including Schneider Electric, Dell, Veolia, Société Générale, Equinor, AXA and more. To learn more, visit www.topia.com.
Related Resources:
- Kennedy’s message to employees: See below
- Shawn Farshchi, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/shawnfarshchi/
- Why Topia: https://www.topia.com/why-topia
About Topia
Topia, the industry’s leading provider of Global Mobility Management software, empowers market-leading enterprises to mobilize global talent and deliver unparalleled employee experiences while allowing organizations to continuously adapt to meet the business needs of tomorrow. With Topia, HR teams can now experience automation of the entire mobility process, from scenario-based planning and compliance risk management to expat payroll, reporting and more. Topia’s data-rich, interactive employee application delivers a consumer-grade experience by centralizing relocation-based tasks and data while providing interactive tools to help take the the stress out of moving. Topia powers global mobility programs for many of the world’s most trusted brands including Schneider Electric, Dell, Veolia, Société Générale, Equinor, AXA and more. Founded in 2010, Topia has raised over $100M from New Enterprise Associates and Notion Capital and operates headquarters in San Francisco and London with offices throughout the Americas, EMEA and APAC. For more information, go to www.topia.com and follow Topia on Twitter, Facebook and LinkedIn.
Topia Founder Brynne Kennedy’s message to employees:
Team Topia,
I am writing to let you know that today I am stepping down as CEO of Topia and introducing a new CEO for the next phase of our journey. I will become Chairwoman of the company and continue to be involved as an active Board member partnering with our new CEO.
It has been the greatest honor of my life to build Topia with Steve and all of you over the last nine years. I am eternally humbled by the faith and trust you placed in me, and forever grateful for your spirited partnership through this journey. You are the heart and soul of Topia, and every day, you have given me strength, joy and the privilege of working with you. Thank you, from the bottom of my heart.
Over the last nine years, we have created a $32 billion software category, made modern mobility possible for countless customers and individuals, and transformed MOVE Guides, Polaris and Teleport into one Topia, strongly positioned for success. I have never felt more excited about our future. As the Founder and largest individual shareholder, no one will be cheering you on more than me.
I founded Topia because I believe that we are stronger when we connect with one another; when we understand each other more deeply and spend time with those who are different than us more regularly. Topia removes barriers between people and places, creating opportunities for people to work everywhere and inspiring connection, empathy and equality — things we need more than ever today. I will be continuing upon this mission, completing my upcoming book and working to create opportunities and empathy for all Americans on my next journey.
I am incredibly proud of the company that we have built, and I know that the best is yet to come for Topia. Please join me for a Town Hall at 7:30am PST to meet our new CEO and welcome the next phase of Topia!
Gratefully,
Brynne
CONTACT: Kasey Thomas, kthomas@sspr.com
SOURCE Topia