Friday, November 21, 2008

Authoria adds McDevitt as CEO; Loofbourrow moves to chairman role

By Mass High Tech Staff

Human resources software company Authoria Inc. announced Friday it is hiring a new chief executive. Authoria board member James J. McDevitt, formerly the COO at CDC Software, will take over from company founder Tod Loofbourrow.

Loofbourrow will continue with the company in the role of chairman.

Prior to working at CDC Software, a $360 million enterprise software division of Hong Kong-based CDC Corp., McDevitt was senior vice president of Canadian enterprise resource planning (ERP) software maker Geac Inc., which was purchased in 2005 by Georgia-based enterprise software maker Infor Inc.

In Friday’s press release, Loofbourrow — a Mass High Tech All-Star in 2000 — said McDevitt brings expertise in identifying and capturing market opportunities and enhancing operational efficiencies.

Waltham-based Authoria was acquired by Bedford Funding, a New York-based private equity firm, in September of 2008 for $63.1 million. At the time, Bedford also committed an $8 million investment to help Authoria expand.

The HR software market is predicted to generate about $7.9 billion in revenue this year and could reach $8.8 billion next year, according to a study by AMR Research Inc., released earlier this year. About 75 percent to 80 percent of that business is generated by smaller companies focusing on niche applications, commonly called “best of breed” providers. The remainder is done by enterprise resource planning, or ERP, software developed by industry giants such as SAP AG and Oracle Corp., which have combined to capture about 50 percent of the HR software market, according to AMR.