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CHARLESTON, S.C. - With a new chief executive at the helm and a flurry of new product development work underway, nonprofit industry software vendor Blackbaud is poised for change, but the exact shape of that change is still unknown.
"We are the not-for-profit software field's leader in innovation and we will continue that, but how we do that may be tricky," said new chief executive Robert Sywolski, a former chairman and chief executive of North American operations for Cap Gemini SA, the international consulting powerhouse that recently acquired the consulting operations of Ernst & Young.
Immediately before taking over Blackbaud, Sywolski was a general partner of JMI Equity Fund, an investment partnership that joined Hellman & Friedman Capital Partners, part of a group that acquired controlling interest in Blackbaud last year. Sywolski succeeded Anthony E. Bakker, Blackbaud's founder and president, who moved on to a role on the board of directors.
"Our goal was to find a CEO who can help take Blackbaud to the next level, someone who will challenge us to do even better and who can teach us new things in the process," said Blackbaud chairman Mick Hellman, who is also managing director of Hellman & Friedman, JMI's partner in the Blackbaud acquisition. "Bob is definitely that person."
Internally, the company, which has grown to an enduser base of some 12,000 organizations, is prepared to "make a shift from an entrepreneurial environment to a broaderbased one that is more institutionalized and structured," Sywolski said. "We've reached a point where it makes sense to institutionalize - to provide more processes and more...