Sam Mudd takes over as CEO at Bytes
Technology Correspondent
Sam Mudd has taken over as CEO of Bytes Technology after the ousting of former long-time boss Neil Murphy earlier in the year due to a share trading scandal.
The board said on Friday that Mudd was appointed with immediate effect after “a selection process led by chair, Patrick De Smedt, with support from a leading external search firm”.
Mudd, with more than 20 years’ leadership experience, has been an executive director since July 2023 and the company’s interim CEO since February. The group said that for 10 years, Mudd was MD of Phoenix Software, a business acquired by Bytes in 2017, overseeing “an extended period of strong organic growth, which has contributed materially to Bytes’ success”. She joined Phoenix in November 2003, after holding senior positions at WordPerfect, Novell and Trustmarque Solutions. Bytes is listed in Johannesburg and London.
Mudd’s ascension came after the Murphy scandal broke. Details of more unauthorised transactions involving his wife have since emerged.
In February the UK firm, spun out of Altron in 2020, said Murphy told the board he had made a number of trades in the company’s shares that had not been disclosed to it or the market as required by listing rules.
CEOs, CFOs, directors and senior managers with inside information about a publicly traded company are required to declare when they trade in their shares. The rules are there to prevent insider trading and ensure market transparency.
The company launched an urgent investigation, and found Murphy engaged in unauthorised and undisclosed trading of Bytes shares on 66 trading days from January 2021 to November 2023, totalling 119 transactions.
The revelations took the company by surprise. It conducted an unrelated share-dealing disclosure investigation in 2023, in which Murphy’s transgressions went undetected.
Bytes also announced that Ross Paterson had been appointed an independent nonexecutive director and chair of its audit committee, with effect from June. Paterson spent more than 23 years at Stagecoach in senior executive finance posts, 10 years as CFO.
The company appointed Anna Vikström Persson an independent nonexecutive director, also with effect from June. Persson will join the group’s audit, nomination and remuneration committees.
Vikström Persson was previously chief human resources (HR) officer for Pearson and executive vice-president, head of HR at Sandvik and SSAB.
Bytes also announced the formation of an environmental, social, and governance (ESG) committee, with effect from June, to monitor the execution of Bytes’ “ESG and sustainability strategy and to provide input to the board and board committees on these matters”.