Rod Drury is stepping down as chief executive of Xero and handing the reins to an Australian.

Drury said Xero would "absolutely" remain New Zealand-based as the company had "a huge amount of our talent here and building businesses from New Zealand makes a whole lot of sense".

Steve Vamos, an Australian, will succeed Drury as chief executive.



Drury, 51, will remain a non-executive director of Xero, and will focus on innovation and strategy.



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Vamos lives in Sydney but said he expected to spend "an enormous amount of time" in New Zealand, where Xero is headquartered and employs about half of its 2000 staff.



He was open to moving away from Australia and would place himself where he could "best serve the business", he said.



"He will consider whether he stays based in Australia or moves to New Zealand depending on the requirements of the business," a spokeswoman said.

SUPPLIED Steve Vamos - taking over next month.

Vamos has worked with Xero's executive team for 18 months, developing its "management capability" and has 30 years' experience in the industry at companies including IBM, Apple and Microsoft.

Drury sold almost $95 million worth of shares in Xero in November, saying the sale would provide an important foundation for his "future plans to pursue a range of philanthropic and social endeavours".

However, the decision appeared to otherwise come out of the blue.

The sale left him with a 13 per cent shareholding in Xero, worth more than $600m.

Xero shares fell 4.4 per cent to A$31.43 in the first hour of trading after Drury announced he was stepping down.

Drury said he had been discussing the change since Graham Smith was appointed chairman of Xero more than a year ago and he had not been ousted.

It had been "a huge 11-plus years building Xero" and he would still be around in his new capacity, and was not looking to take on any other roles or directorships, he said.

"I am not going to become CTO [chief technology officer] for New Zealand. I really want to focus on making sure Steve is successful."

With regard to his philanthropic endeavours, Drury said he was "starting doing a few things and getting ready for that".

Drury said Xero had recently achieved a number of "key milestones", including achieving an operating (Ebitda) profit and consolidating its share trading on the ASX.

"It's now the right time for me to pass the baton to Steve, who has the experience to significantly expand Xero internationally," he said.

Smith said succession planning had been high on the board's agenda.

"With the business performing strongly, we believe the time is right to make the transition."

Smith said on a conference call with investors that Xero had become recognised as one of the leading small business platforms.

"What Rod had done is unmatched."

The company's highest priority was to continue to scale the business globally, he said.

"We believe that needs a slightly different set of skills in the CEO role."

Vamos sits on the boards of Fletcher Building and Telstra. He was previously chief executive of Microsoft Australia and New Zealand, and managing director of Apple in the Asia Pacific region.

He will take over as chief executive of Xero on April 1.

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