London, May 15, 2026, 14:03 (BST)
Sage Group plc named Krish Vitaldevara as chief product officer and Anand Swaminathan as chief strategy officer, moving two senior technology executives into its top team as the British software group tries to sharpen its AI and cloud strategy before next week’s interim results. Vitaldevara joins on May 18 and Swaminathan on June 15, with both based in Sage’s San Jose, California office, the company said.
The timing matters. Sage is due to present first-half fiscal 2026 results on May 21, and investors are looking for evidence that its AI investments are supporting growth rather than adding cost. Company-compiled sell-side consensus, last updated May 6, points to first-half organic revenue growth of 9.8%, with “organic” meaning growth excluding the effects of acquisitions and currency moves. Sage
Sage shares were up 0.5% at 859.2 pence at 14:02 BST, according to Google Finance data, but the stock remains well below last year’s highs after a rough stretch for software names exposed to AI-disruption concerns.
Chief Executive Steve Hare called the two hires “proven leaders” and said the appointments reflected Sage’s “continued investment in innovation and growth.” Vitaldevara was previously a senior executive at Salesforce after its acquisition of Informatica and has also held leadership roles at NetApp, Google and Microsoft. Swaminathan was a senior partner at McKinsey and earlier held senior roles at Accenture Digital. Sage
The U.S. base is not a small detail. North America was Sage’s largest region in the first quarter, with revenue up 13% to £304 million, ahead of growth of 10% in the UK and Ireland and 7% in Europe. Group first-quarter revenue rose 10% to £674 million, while Sage Business Cloud revenue rose 15% to £574 million, the company’s January trading update showed.
Finance chief Jacqui Cartin said at the time that Sage had made a “strong start to FY26” and was investing “across our AI-powered platform.” The company reiterated full-year guidance in that update, leaving next week’s results to carry the next proof point on margins, subscription growth and uptake of newer cloud products.
The leadership changes follow Sage’s April expansion of AI agents across finance, HR and operations. The company said its Sage Intacct Finance Intelligence Agent would be rolled out in phases and was designed to move finance teams from manual processing toward review and decision-making, with audit trails for AI-driven actions.
The race is not Sage’s alone. Xero on May 14 launched XeroForce, a natural-language AI agent builder for small businesses and accountants, while Intuit’s QuickBooks is also marketing AI agents for accounting, financial reporting and customer communications. That puts Sage’s new product leadership directly into a crowded contest for small-business software budgets.
In the UK, Sage also moved this week to use tax-rule changes as a product opening. Its May 13 update to MTD for Income Tax Agent is meant to help accountants identify eligible clients and prepare quarterly reporting workflows, as HMRC’s Making Tax Digital rules now require sole traders and landlords above the £50,000 income threshold to use compatible software for quarterly updates.
Sage is also still buying back stock. A regulatory filing showed it bought 1,707,504 ordinary shares on May 14 through J.P. Morgan Securities at a volume-weighted average price of 852.745 pence, with the shares to be cancelled under a programme announced on March 2 and expected to end no later than June 5.
But hiring and buybacks do not settle the argument. Sage has to show that AI features can protect pricing and win customers while rivals push similar tools, and higher UK rates could keep pressure on software valuations. A Reuters poll this week found the Bank of England was expected to hold rates at 3.75% this year, though more than a third of economists expected at least one hike; Polymarket put the chance of a 2026 BoE rate increase at 59%.
The next test comes Thursday. Analysts tracked by Sage expect fiscal 2026 revenue of £2.75 billion, operating profit of £676 million and an operating margin of 24.5%; the market will want to know whether the new AI push is lifting those numbers, or merely changing the job titles around them.
