Before Xero Changed Accounting, Rod Drury Changed Email
Rod Drury AfterMail CEO and Consensus Awards winner in 2005 and then Founder of Xero
AfterMail | Consensus Software Award Winner 2005
When Rod Drury entered the Consensus Software Awards in 2005, he was already solving one of business's fastest-growing challenges.
Email had rapidly become the primary communication tool for organisations around the world, yet very few businesses had effective ways to archive, manage or retrieve the growing volume of digital correspondence. Compliance obligations were increasing, legal discovery requirements were emerging and organisations were beginning to realise that email had become one of their most valuable business assets.
Rod Drury saw the opportunity before almost everyone else.
Through his company AfterMail, he developed innovative Email Archiving Software that enabled organisations to automatically capture, securely store and retrieve email communications, helping businesses improve governance, reduce risk and meet increasingly complex compliance requirements.
The technology earned AfterMail a Consensus Software Award in 2005, recognising the innovation, technical excellence and commercial potential behind the business.
It was only the beginning.
The following year, AfterMail attracted the attention of global enterprise software company Quest Software, which acquired the business and integrated its Australian-developed technology into its worldwide messaging and information management portfolio.
For many entrepreneurs, that would have been the defining achievement of a career.
For Rod Drury, it was simply the first chapter.
Following the successful sale of AfterMail, Rod founded Xero in 2006 with a vision to completely transform accounting software.
At a time when most accounting systems were still installed on desktop computers, Xero pioneered cloud-based accounting, giving businesses and accountants secure, real-time access to their financial information from anywhere in the world.
The idea fundamentally changed an industry.
Under Rod's leadership, Xero grew from an ambitious startup into one of the world's most successful Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) companies.
Listed on the New Zealand Stock Exchange and later the Australian Securities Exchange, Xero expanded internationally, serving millions of subscribers across more than 180 countries and becoming one of the most influential technology companies ever founded in Australasia.
Today, Rod Drury is widely regarded as one of the region's most successful technology entrepreneurs, recognised for helping shape the global SaaS industry and inspiring a generation of software founders.
For Consensus, his journey tells a remarkable story.
Long before Xero became a global success, before international recognition and before cloud accounting transformed business forever, Consensus recognised the innovation and entrepreneurial vision behind Rod Drury's first major software company.
The Consensus Awards have always been about more than recognising great technology.
They are about recognising the people capable of building it.
Rod Drury's journey—from Consensus Award winner with AfterMail to founder of one of the world's most successful software companies—is a powerful reminder that today's innovators often become tomorrow's industry legends.