Kayo Lakadia

Kayo is a commercial operations and GTM executive with an engineering background and two startups behind him. Across 14 years in healthcare technology, aviation, and SaaS, he has built and repaired the commercial infrastructure behind multi-million-dollar businesses at Orion Health, Air New Zealand, and Xero, where he now serves as GM, Commercial & GTM Operations. During his tenure at Xero, he has grown his impact and influence (3 promotions in 8 years while growing teams) and has consistently been engaged to build, speed up or repair critical commercial infrastructure, including sales process, deal governance frameworks, and partner incentive strategy.

His approach combines structured, hypothesis-driven analysis with hands-on execution, translating ambiguous commercial problems into decisions that hold up at board and customer level. He is a builder of durable operating systems that outlast the initiatives that created them, while developing the people and small, high leverage teams who run them.

GM, Commercial and GTM Operations - Xero - Melbourne, AU

(2025-01)

• Redesigned sales compensation for ~300 quota-carrying roles, shifting towards greater retention and multiproduct revenue, partnering with Sales and Finance leaders to rebuild a net-dollar-retention-based incentive logic (improved alignment to headline metrics, +20% YoY revenue increase in Q1)
• Delivered an accelerated multiproduct GTM strategy and orchestration for Payments cross sell focused on outbound sales opportunities and digital engagement (improved +12% attach and +28% TPV)
• Tightened partner discount governance across the sales organization, replacing ad hoc negotiation with defined margin guidance tiers, drove an agentic deal desk/CPQ platform build and codifying new approval guardrails (customer discovery to deal approval times improved >50%, est. +12M incremental ARR)

GM, Commercial Operations - Xero - Auckland, NZ

(2023-01 - 2025-01)

• Led, scoped and successfully executed a 6-month global program that was a market sensitive critical Board priority under new CEO to realign GTM strategy for value-based selling (improved ARPU 4%)
• Rebuilt strategy for and owned P&L for the channel incentive program, that was an underinvested discount pool, and led turnaround using new digital medium tactics/partnerships and sales-led program nudges to kickstart incremental revenue supported by 20+ experiments (sourced $6M ARR in first year)
• Transformed partner bulk sales motion revenue using sharper incentive constructs, governance and targeting with longer contracts (improved 3x on POS plan mix, ~7M contracted revenue benefit in FY)

Head of Commercial - Xero - Auckland, NZ

(2021-01 - 2023-01)

• Cut non-standard deal volume requiring senior escalation by more than 40% year over, by formalising Global Deals Desk governance charter and embedding into sales process across ~300 roles (improved post-sales support, ~20% reduced discounting without hurting topline production)
• Beat forecasts on both net-new subscribers and net-new MRR, by rebuilding sales forecasting and exec-reporting model used across Finance and Revenue teams (increased visibility and shaped daily data-led forecast vs out of date weekly/monthly regional sentiment reporting)
• Sized incremental revenue opportunities for review and delivered a pricing change within the same fiscal year, leading a regional partner pricing initiative across ANZ/North America (worth AU$2-5M ARR)

Senior Revenue Program Manager - Xero - Auckland, NZ

(2018-01 - 2021-01)

• Redesigned Consulting function around a pre-sales/post-sales split that remains its operating structure today, by saving foundational expertise and reallocating duplicating functional work away (increased alignment with sales revenue generation, ~15% efficiency saving)
• Built customer-facing reporting infrastructure still cited as the source-of-truth file in internal documentation years later, by standardizing quarterly business review production (~10% efficiency improvement)

Market Intelligence Manager - Air New Zealand - Auckland, NZ

(2017-01 - 2018-01)

• Led a board-approved fleet purchase decision by delivering capacity analysis for a key partnership, laying the groundwork for expanded commercial engagement the following year (revenue ~$100M p.a.)
• Assessed consistently as a High Performer delivering beyond core role, taking on stretch assignments and coaching/mentoring team members to deliver excellence (above target team eNPS)

Strategy Consultant - Air New Zealand - Auckland, NZ

(2015-01 - 2017-01)

• Scaled competitor intelligence coverage from a handful of markets to a full portfolio spanning >6 carriers and 4 global regions, while cutting monthly reporting production time; then redesigning the Executive Forum to deliver >$100M strategic market investment (double HNL capacity, IAH entry, TAS alliance)

Financial Planning & Analysis / Corporate Strategy & Initiatives / Product Analyst - Orion Health - Auckland, NZ

(2012-01 - 2015-01)

• Cut the time to produce Group budgeting and forecasting deliverables in half, while group structure got more complex, across a substantial cost and revenue base (delivered to target ~NZ$200M)
• Key member of 4-person IPO team; co-authored the investment-highlights section of the board document behind Orion Health's $120M IPO, contributing directly to the board's go-forward listing decision
• Closed the company's first Health Information System deal outside the ASEAN region by building the commercial pricing model that surfaced delivery risks and won customer acceptance (revenue ~$50M)
• Built product-profitability reporting to drive executive/board investment strategy (cost ~$50M); recognized with the Orion Star Award and "Game-Changer" status (top 2% of the company)

B.Eng. (Honours) - Electrical and Computer Systems Engineering - University of Auckland (2007-01 - 2010-01)

Start-up Hatchery Program - ICEHOUSE

SPARK Mini-MBA Program