Tim Weller has been appointed as Datto’s CEO on a permanent basis after holding the fort when Austin McChord decided to step away from the day-to-day running of the business late last year.
Weller had previously served as CFO, COO and president of the firm and had moved into the acting leadership role when McChord essentially resigned as CEO in October 2018.
It’s now been well over a year since Datto acquired Autotask and reaped the benefits, reporting strong growth, especially in Europe. And, if it isn’t broken, why try to fix - or at least change it - seems to be very much Weller’s motto as he embarks on the next chapter of his career.
"Austin left us very well positioned culturally. In 11 years he infused that [sense of serving partners better] into the culture. There's just nobody at Datto that doesn't think with an MSP hat on," he said.
"I have some ideas, but the difference will be less McChord vs Weller and more about the scale of the business. Even under Austin's leadership, even he was taken aback by successful Datto had become and how fast we had grown. We have 14,000 partners so my focus in that regard going forward is about scale.
"It's this dichotomy of using the scale of the size of the business to deliver more for customers, but on the flip side maintaining that one-on-one experience. We need to continually be easy to do business with. Datto should never feel like a large company. It shouldn't feel different to customers with the team we have now compared to the team when Austin was leading. So, it's more of the same - it's not about a personality, it's more about the partners."
Weller holds a doctorate in electrical engineering from the University of Illinois and bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Michigan State University. Prior to joining Datto in 2017, he had worked at a number of high-profile companies including Akami and green tech firm EnerNoc.
"I'm excited about the opportunities ahead. We just finished a record Q4 and the momentum in the business is very good," Weller said.
"The focus is on serving MSPs better. When we don't save an MSP time, we haven't done our job. So, it's technology to save them time, easier access on the sales and marketing side to our products, improving our 24/7 global support. But there's always room to improve there. For example, I'm just back from Australia and if you call in the middle of the night there you don't necessarily get routed to the right person. So we fixed that when I got back. It's about optimisation - I took a lot of notes on that tour. It's always a case of 'what can we do better for partners?'"
Weller added: "We were overwhelmed by DattoCon Barcelona and how successful that was. We have almost as many partners signed up for Paris DattoCon this year. We can feel the momentum in the MSP channel overall in EMEA and the shift to recurring solutions and revenue. And, when the channel grows, we grow."
His appointment to the driving seat comes with McChord’s full blessing, with the company founder and former CEO, saying: “Tim and I worked every day, side by side, for the last year and a half as we grew Datto. I’m happy to see Tim lead the company moving forward.
“Tim knows well the significance of Datto’s value in the industry today and its immense potential, and he shares in Datto’s values and unique culture. Most importantly, he is passionate about Datto’s MSP community. Datto is in good hands with Tim.”
McChord remains a board member of the company and Weller taking on the CEO role is backed by fellow board members.
“We are excited for this next phase in Datto’s growth and we are confident that Tim is the right candidate to lead the company and to continue its industry leadership through strategic growth and MSP-centric innovation,” said Nadeem Syed, Vista Operating principal and Datto board member.
“Tim’s extensive global leadership experience with public and private companies, combined with his deep technical and financial expertise make him a natural fit to help the company continue to scale and grow.”
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