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Charlton Tabbed As New CEO At Abila Software

There’s a change at the top at Abila software. Long-time executive Krista Endsley is stepping down at the association and nonprofit financial management software firm and the board is installing technology executive Craig Charlton as chief executive officer.

Charlton was an Australia-based strategic advisor to Accel-KKR, a Menlo Park-based technology investment firm that acquired the nonprofit arm of Sage Group in March 2013 and a few months later rebranded it as Abila. The firm reports having nearly 8,000 customers across North America.

“Craig brings a great deal of experience delivering high-quality ERP and CRM software and services to nonprofits, government entities, healthcare entities, and
other businesses in a wide variety of sectors,” Tom Barnds, Abila’s chairman of the Board of Directors, said via a released statement.

Previous to his work at Accel-KKR, Charlton was a non-executive director of Sinefa, a Melbourne, Australia-based software and data company founded in 2011. He was also non-executive chairman of Health Metrics, also in Melbourne.

Charlton spent nearly a decade, from 2007 until March of 2016, in various international roles with Epicor Software Corp., an enterprise resource planning (ERP) and customer relationship management (CRM) software firm with offices in 50 countries. He was also with accounting and management consulting firm Grant Thornton LLP.

“I am excited to continue the work started by Krista Endsley and the team at Abila,” said Charlton via the statement. “As we expand into the cloud and improve our operational excellence, we will continue to deliver on our promise to ensure our customers are primed to succeed, now and in the future.”

Endsley remains an investor in the firm. “It has been a true privilege and honor to be a part of Abila and work to enable associations, nonprofit organizations, and government entities to build community and improve lives,” she said via the statement.

Endsley has led Austin, Texas-based Abila since its March 2013 inception. She was general manager and senior vice president of Sage Software from June 2007 until the firm was acquired by Accel-KKR when she was tapped to lead the new organization. She had been a senior manager with Sage and predecessor Best Software since 2001.

Sage Nonprofit Solutions (NPS) was rebranded as Abila, after a $101.2-million deal in March 2013 between Accel-KKR and software giant Sage Group in the United Kingdom. The nonprofit element was the largest segment of three in the deal.

Accel-KKR also acquired Austin, Texas-based Sage Nonprofit Solutions and funded the firm Swiftpage to acquire Sage ACT! and Sage SalesLogix. Sage Group also will have an equity stake in Swiftpage, which is a long-time Sage partner.