Xero

Xero is an online accounting system designed for small businesses.

Xero was founded in July 2006 by successful technology entrepreneur Rod Drury and specialist small business accountant Hamish Edwards. Xero is now listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange and is a fast growing company with offices in Wellington and Auckland.
The Big Idea

The foundations for Xero were established back in 2003 when Rod Drury and Hamish Edwards worked together, building the award-winning software company AfterMail – Rod as chief executive and Hamish as the virtual CFO, running his own accounting practice.

But it wasn’t until 2006 with growing internet access and advanced web development techniques, along with increasing acceptance of the internet that the time was right to begin development.
Building Xero

Rod and Hamish set about hiring the best and brightest people and forming relationships with small businesses and their advisors, to get direction on the features and design of Xero. They fused this with their own extensive knowledge of small business – Rod having built numerous successful enterprises from scratch, while Hamish, a chartered accountant, had advised hundreds as a virtual CFO.
Growing Up

Listing on the NZX in June 2007 was an important milestone for Xero – growing from a small start-up software company to a listed company within a year – demonstrating how determined we are at Xero to set milestones and to achieve them.

Our goal remains to build a long-term global business from New Zealand, creating an environment that’s attractive to the country’s very best people. We’ve always said we wanted to revolutionise small business, and that’s what we’re here to do.