Avalara Names New Chief Financial Officer and Chief Legal Officer

Company expands executive team as market demand for Avalara’s AI-powered tax compliance software solutions grows globally

Avalara, Inc., a leading provider of cloud-based tax compliance automation for businesses of all sizes, today announced it has named Sydney Carey as EVP, Chief Financial Officer and Karyn Smith as EVP, Chief Legal Officer, to support the global demand for Avalara’s AI-powered tax compliance software. Both positions will be members of Avalara’s executive leadership team and report to the company’s president.

As Chief Financial Officer, Carey is responsible for leading Avalara’s worldwide Finance & Accounting team while modernizing finance and accounting processes. Carey brings more than 20 years of experience working at and with fast-growing technology companies, most recently as CFO at Talkdesk. Her prior experience includes serving as CFO at Sumo Logic, where she led the company through its IPO; CFO at Zscaler and MongoDB, among other SaaS companies; and a decade as Corporate Controller and later CFO at TIBCO when it was a public company.

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Smith brings more than 30 years of experience working at and with high-growth companies, both private and publicly traded. She spent more than seven years at Twilio, beginning in 2014 as its first lawyer. At Twilio, Smith led a global team with oversight of legal, government affairs, regulatory compliance, privacy, and ethics as the company grew to $2.8B in annual revenue in 2021. As Chief Legal Officer, Smith leads Avalara’s Legal team, overseeing all legal matters related to Avalara’s global operations and strategic business initiatives.

“Sydney and Karyn bring deep finance, legal and operational expertise to Avalara that will help us continue to grow profitability while protecting our proprietary offerings,” said Ross Tennenbaum, President of Avalara. “Avalara aspires to be part of every transaction in the world, and we look forward to having these two renowned leaders in technology as part of our team.”

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