Telematics company Eroad has appointed a new chief executive, said to have a track record in scaling software businesses.
Eroad executive chairman John Scott announced the appointment of David Leach on Tuesday after a months-long search for a new chief executive delayed by a shareholder's unsuccessful attempt to overturn the company's board.
Leach – who is Auckland-based and will start at Eroad on Oct 12 – is currently chief executive of cloud-based insurance software provider JAVLN and has previously led inventory software firm Cin7.
“He’s just done it before … He’s taken New Zealand to the world,” Scott said in an interview.
“I just felt like he just had a really good combination of skills.”
Tech background
Eroad worked with recruiter Johnson Partners for its chief executive search, and whittled down a long list of 50 candidates to about 10 on a shortlist, before interviewing six candidates.
Scott said Leach was a technologist who had an intuitive understanding of Eroad’s business from his past experience, which included software-as-a-service businesses enabled by hardware.
JAVLN, which sells insurance broker management software that can operate within Microsoft 365, has more than 13,000 users.
Leach has been chief executive of this firm since October 2024. The company on Tuesday said its founder and chairman, Dale Smith, would return as CEO as Leach "leaves the business in great shape".
Before JAVLN, Leach was chief executive and board member of Cin7, an inventory management firm with more than 8000 customers, and managed 125 million customer transactions per year.
Scott said this firm was “big scale, big transactional, critical to uptime of the customers” that, by New Zealand standards, went from “medium to big”.
Leach excited
Leach, in a statement to the NZX, said Eroad had an opportunity to build on its past success and “lead the world in connected and smarter transportation”.
“I am excited to join the team and work with the board, leadership team and our customers to build Eroad’s AI-native platform, accelerate growth, and create long-term value.
“My focus will be on improving customer outcomes, strengthening execution and ensuring we invest our time and capital in the areas that produce the highest returns for customers and shareholders.”
Leach would earn $595,000 a year, the Eroad announcement said, and would have a short-term incentive with a target of 33% of base salary per annum, and a long-term incentive with a 100% target.
He would remain on the board of Archipro, a software platform for architects, designers and builders to connect with clients.
KPIs to come
Leach will effectively replace Scott when he takes the reins of the company, after the board director stepped into an executive position in October 2025 to assist the company with a turnaround.
The prior chief executive, Mark Heine, departed Eroad in June.
Scott’s position as executive chairman has been extended beyond the previously planned nine-month term for a “limited period”, as Eroad awaits the arrival of Leach. He will then revert to being a non-executive board chair.
It would be Leach’s job to build out the company strategy, Scott said, and Eroad shareholders could expect to hear more from the company in October about the operational metrics that would be set.
Scott said he believed in having six or eight “hero KPIs”, or key performance indicators, with layers of another six or eight KPIs beneath them, until about 500 KPIs in total were set.
“If you start doing that, you’re operating at a world-class level. There’s probably only half a dozen businesses in New Zealand who do it, and so that’s what we’ll take to market in October.”
Shareholders had been “super supported” since a June annual meeting, Scott said, when resolutions put forward by the largest shareholder, Ampfield Management, seeking Scott’s ouster from the board had been voted down.