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Brisbane-based recruitment tech company Compono has appointed former managing director of Xero Australia and Asia Trent Innes as its new CEO, effective from 2 May.
Innes will bring extensive experience to the role after spending eight years at Xero, where he worked as a national go-to-market director for two years before being promoted in 2016.
He also spent an equal amount of time at Microsoft, where he was hired as a national solution consultant in 2004 and advanced to become enterprise CRM sales manager within two years.
“I am thrilled to be joining the team at Compono and look forward to enhancing the company’s global operations and position as a leader in end-to-end talent solutions that realise the full potential of people,” said Innes.
“The fundamentals are in place for the business - workforces are becoming increasingly remote and top talent is demanding more of their employers than ever.
“It’s an environment where disruptors thrive and Compono has built a world-class technology platform that helps businesses hire and engage talent better than anyone else out there. Whilst their class-leading training and certification programs, including the use of virtual reality to deliver immersive learning experiences, can develop people exponentially.”
Founded in 2017 by former Temando CEO Carl Hartmann and corporate psychologist Rudy Crous, Compono provides businesses a platform to manage the recruitment, retention and engagement of staff through the use of data, organisational design and psychology.
Alongside assessing a candidate’s technical competence, the software also takes into account their personality and whether they will suit a company’s culture and values.
Compono previously secured $5 million in a seed round from investment firms such as Deepbridge Capital, Maropost Ventures, Marshall Investments and businessman Andrew Banks. Since then, it has rapidly grown to employ 149 staff across its offices in New York, London, New Zealand and Australia.
Innes explained that “one of the biggest challenges” Xero faced during his eight-year tenure was “finding and retaining the right people".
“As a leader, you quickly learn what is truly important - it’s often not just about the right skills or experience, but about finding people with the right attitude and mindset for your organisation,” he said.
“Ultimately you want people to be set up for success and to thrive in your environment. A bad hiring decision is not only a poor use of company resources, it’s a poor employee experience as well.
“By combining human psychology and organisational design, Compono solves this difficult recruitment problem and helps businesses and individuals realise their full potential in the process.”
Hartmann says Innes “is a people-focused leader who understands the challenges many businesses are facing when it comes to attracting and retaining their workforce".
“I look forward to seeing him scale the company and bring our market-leading talent optimisation solutions onto the world stage,” said Hartmann, who was named number 53 in Business News Australia’s Top 100 Young Entrepreneurs list.
“His passion and experience leading technology companies with global ambition makes Trent the ideal choice to lead Compono through our next stage of growth.”
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