Payments-tech company Lightspeed Commerce Inc. hired former Alphabet Inc. executive Ryan Tabone as its chief product and technology officer as it seeks to reboot its growth plans.
Tabone will help “shift the focus from acquisitions and integrations to innovation to address customers’ biggest challenges, such as cash flow and supply chain management,” Lightspeed said in an emailed statement. The company’s point-of-sale software helps retailers and restaurants with payment processing, inventory management, e-commerce and other services.
Montreal-based Lightspeed went on an acquisition spree after its 2019 initial public offering, using its shares as currency for deals. But the company was the subject of a short-seller report by Spruce Point Capital Management LLC a year ago and has slumped in the tech selloff. The Toronto-listed shares are down 78 per cent in the past year.
Until recently, Tabone, 40, was executive-in-residence and adviser for “other bets” at Google’s parent company. During his 15 years at the Silicon Valley giant, he helped manage the development of well-known products such as Chromebook, G Suite, Google Pay and Google Finance.
“Every merchant spends so much time managing different pieces of the e-commerce stack,” said Tabone, referring to technology tools and platforms. Lightspeed has “a massive opportunity to simplify that.”
Tabone will lead a team of approximately 900 people, about one-third of the company’s workforce. He succeeds Guillaume Jacquet, who founded Chronogolf, a software platform for golf course operators that was acquired by Lightspeed in 2019.
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