Aircall, the business phone system, announced that Michael Haske will join as CEO effective September 2, 2022. Haske, previously the President and Chief Operating Officer at Paylocity, will succeed Olivier Pailhes. Pailhes co-founded Aircall in 2014 and has led the firm to achieve over $1bn valuation and scale to serve more than 13,000 customers in over 100 countries.
Pailhes will remain on the board and continue to serve as a strategic advisor to the organisation. Haske joins Aircall at a pivotal time as the company has recently reached centaur status with $100m Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) and continues to expand.
What is the industry expertise of Haske?
He brings nearly three decades of experience in scaling high-growth, cloud-based software businesses and will continue driving Aircall’s global leadership in the cloud communications industry and further its mission to empower every professional to have richer conversations.
Haske recently served as President and COO of cloud-based Payroll & Human Resources software company Paylocity, where he led the company’s growth from 100 employees and $15 million in revenue to being on track to reach 5,000 employees and $1 billion in revenue.
In 2014 Haske and the Paylocity leadership team took the company public on NASDAQ under ticker symbol PCTY. He’s also served in multiple leadership roles including Executive Sponsor at Blue Marble Payroll, Director of Marketing for Paychex and various roles with ADP.
“Michael not only brings the right experience to accelerate Aircall’s momentum, he deeply understands the importance of cultivating a diverse, employee-centric culture – which has been instrumental to Aircall’s success to date. I am very proud of the hard work and success the Aircall team has delivered so far, and this change is a testimony of our ambition to build a global leader in the communications space.” said Olivier Pailhes, CEO and Co-Founder, Aircall.
What were Haske’s thoughts on the new role?
“Olivier and Jonathan set a strong foundation and built an incredible company and culture with tremendous potential and opportunity ahead,” said Michael Haske, Incoming CEO, Aircall.
“It’s an exciting time to join Aircall and I look forward to leading its next evolution as we continue to provide the most modern cloud communications tools and strive to be one the best places to work. It’s an honor to lead the company into its next chapter and beyond.”
Outgoing Chief Executive Officer, Pailhes, alongside his co-founders Jonathan Anguelov, Pierre-Baptiste Béchu and Xavier Durand, launched Aircall in 2014 after seeing the need for a better communication platform for businesses to interact with their customers. Jonathan Anguelov will remain in his role as General Manager of Aircall’s EMEA and APAC business.
Aircall is among a small group of 150 private SaaS companies to reach Centaur status and will build on this achievement with expansion plans in Singapore and Madrid later this year.
