Shake-up at Waystone came after disagreement on future direction

Derek Delaney, former Global CEO at Waystone

Jon Ihle

The senior management team at Dublin-based financial services company Waystone are understood to have left after a disagreement at board level over the future strategy of the firm.

Chief executive Derek Delaney, chief operating officer Paul Cahill and chief financial officer Glen Magee all left the business last Thursday, Waystone confirmed.

They remain shareholders in the business.

Staff at the asset management services company were told on Thursday and clients were informed on Friday.

The move came about after the board assessed the needs of the asset management services company in its next phase of growth after several years of rapid expansion via acquisition.

However, not all parties were in agreement about the new direction.

A spokesperson for Waystone confirmed the board had begun the process to appoint successors and that chair Nancy Lewis had stepped in to lead the business on a full-time basis in the interim.

“Given our growth and the current scale of the business it was felt that the right thing for the company was to introduce new management to take the business through the next stage of its journey,” the spokesperson said. The three senior executives came into the business as a team seven years ago and built it into a major player with 1,000 employees and contracts to service $2trn in assets under management.

Waystone is in talks with Australia’s Link Administration Holdings to buy its UK fund services unit. An announcement on the deal and future strategy is expected within weeks.