The 2015 Executive Excellence Awards: Frank Pelzer

Frank Pelzer

Chief Financial Officer, Concur Technologies

By the time Frank Pelzer joined Concur Technologies four years ago, he had already been closely involved with the company. As a director in the Software Investment Banking Group of Deutsche Bank, Pelzer had covered the expense-report-tracking company since its founding by Steve Singh, Rajeev Singh and Mike Hilton. I gained great admiration for them, Pelzer says. They made some great strategic moves, and I helped with some of them.

As an analyst, Pelzer specialized in companies using Concurs Software-as-a-Service business model. When he joined Concur, he brought insights about what makes this emerging industry profitable renting a service means earning the trust of your customer on a monthly basis and helped guide the business as its annual revenue grew from $300 million to $700 million.

Pelzer has had a key role in Concurs rocketing growth, supervising many acquisitions and shepherding its recent sale to Germanys SAP in a deal valued at $8.3 billion. While the acquisition wasnt planned, Pelzer wasnt greatly surprised. Anytime you come into a public company, he says, theres always a chance that a bigger fish could swallow you up.
He expects Concur to blend well with its new parent, given the companies shared customer-centric values. Pelzer adds, Im very optimistic it will be a successful acquisition for SAP.