The chief executive of a cyber security firm backed by Mike Lynch has stepped down weeks after the tycoon’s death, as the business prepares its exit from the London market.
Poppy Gustafsson, a co-founder of Darktrace who had held the top job since 2016, said it was the “right time to hand over the reins” ahead of the business going private in a £4.3bn deal.
Jill Popelka, who joined the company at the start of the year and took over as chief operating officer at the company earlier this summer, will become chief executive. She has held senior roles at technology companies including Accenture and Snapchat’s owner, Snap.
Darktrace is preparing to leave the London Stock Exchange after a three-year stint on the market. The company agreed to a takeover by private equity firm Thoma Bravo in April.
At the time, the focus was centered around Mr Lynch’s potential payday from the deal. The British entrepreneur – dubbed Britain’s Bill Gates – was poised to net £300m from the disposal of the business. Mr Lynch held 7pc of the company in April along with his wife, Angela Bacares.
Mr Lynch and his 18-year-old daughter Hannah were among the victims when superyacht Bayesian sank off the coast of Sicily last month. His wife survived the sinking.
Ms Gustafsson was among those to pay tribute to the Darktrace founder, saying there would “be no Darktrace” without Mr Lynch.
In a post on LinkedIn following his death, she said: “I am grateful to Mike for his support to me and to Darktrace which continued long after his involvement. He leaves behind an enormous legacy with us but also with the broader UK technology ecosystem.”
Mr Lynch, who was a founding investor in Darktrace and a former board member at the company, stepped back from the business in 2018 after he was caught up in a US criminal trial over the $11bn (£8.3bn) sale of his technology company Autonomy in 2011.
He was found liable for fraud in a civil trial in 2022. The judge at the time said he was involved in pursuing “contrived” deals with “no commercial substance” which inflated Autonomy’s value ahead of the sale. Mr Lynch was extradited to the US.
He was acquitted in a trial earlier this year and vowed to help wrongly-accused Britons in the US.
Disclaimer: The copyright of this article belongs to the original author. Reposting this article is solely for the purpose of information dissemination and does not constitute any investment advice. If there is any infringement, please contact us immediately. We will make corrections or deletions as necessary. Thank you.
