The operator who helped Box go from 18 people to a public company is now running Ignition - a Sydney-founded platform that processes billions of dollars in revenue for accountants, consultants, and agencies who'd rather stop chasing invoices and start running their businesses.
Greg Strickland has a habit of joining companies right before they become undeniable. Box, when it was 18 people and mostly a bet. Productboard, as the product management category was still being defined. And now Ignition, the Sydney-founded platform that has quietly become the operating system for how professional services businesses get paid.
He joined as Global President in early 2024. By the end of that year, North America revenue had grown 50% year over year. By January 2025, co-founder Guy Pearson handed him the CEO role. The pattern is consistent enough to stop calling it luck.
What Strickland brings to each of these situations isn't a grand vision so much as a calibrated operating instinct - the ability to read what a company needs at a specific stage and deliver it without drama. His self-described style is "unflappable." The results tend to speak louder than the label.
Ignition's core premise is simple: service businesses - accountants, marketing agencies, consultants, law firms - spend an absurd amount of time on the mechanics of getting paid. Proposals that go unsigned. Invoices that go ignored. Payments that arrive three months late, if at all. Ignition automates the entire chain, from engagement letter to signed contract to recurring payment collection, so that cash flow stops being a crisis and starts being a system.
"Cash flow is the lifeblood of every small-medium sized business and has downstream impacts on everything - ability to make payroll, pay vendors, invest in growth, pay mortgages."- Greg Strickland, CEO, Ignition
Strickland came to Ignition with something the company specifically needed: deep roots in the US market and a working knowledge of American small business. A family member is a US CPA. He understands - practically, not theoretically - what it means to sit across from a client and talk about money. That personal connection shaped how he approached the North America expansion from day one.
He's also, by his own account, a binary thinker. Either completely committed or not interested. The ambivalence-tolerant leadership style common in large organizations doesn't quite fit him. When he took the Ignition role, he was all in. The numbers reflect it.
Ignition was founded in Sydney in 2013 by Guy Pearson and Dane Thomas under the name Practice Ignition - a platform purpose-built for accounting firms who were drowning in manual client onboarding, paper engagement letters, and unpredictable revenue. The rebrand to simply "Ignition" came as the company expanded beyond accounting into legal, consulting, and marketing agencies.
The platform sits at the intersection of proposals, contracts, and payments. A professional services firm can send a custom-branded proposal, get it signed with an electronic signature, and have payment automatically collected - all without a separate invoicing tool, a manual reminder, or a follow-up phone call. For many firms, the first time they use Ignition is the first time they've had real visibility into what their revenue will look like three months from now.
The company has raised $79.4 million in total funding, with the most recent round being $15 million in debt financing in August 2023. Headquarters remain in Sydney, but the North American market - under Strickland's direct oversight - is where the growth story is currently being written.
"Service-based businesses such as accounting, marketing agencies, consulting and legal services are undergoing a major transformation in how they think about pricing, packaging and billing their offerings. Ignition plays a critical role in helping them navigate the transition."- Greg Strickland
Over two decades, Strickland has run operations at companies at every stage - from scrappy startups to post-IPO enterprises. The thread that runs through all of it: he shows up when the scaling is hardest and stays until it works.
Strickland's central argument is straightforward, and it cuts against the grain of most fintech narratives: while the industry obsesses over AI, the most urgent problem for professional services businesses is much older than large language models. It's getting paid. On time. Predictably.
"Ignition is truly transforming how accounting and service businesses operate, particularly in addressing critical challenges such as accounts receivables and cash flow management."On joining Ignition as Global President
"Cash flow is the lifeblood of every small-medium sized business and has downstream impacts on everything - ability to make payroll, pay vendors, invest in growth, pay mortgages."On the real crisis for small business
"Service-based businesses such as accounting, marketing agencies, consulting and legal services are undergoing a major transformation in how they think about pricing, packaging and billing their offerings."On the market transformation Ignition is targeting
"I always optimize for business outcomes."On his decision-making philosophy, from Between Two COOs
In a "Between Two COOs" interview, Strickland described himself as "unflappable" - a word that, when it comes from a Silicon Valley executive, usually signals either genuine equanimity or a well-practiced mask. The career record suggests the former. He has repeatedly walked into high-stakes operational roles, navigated organizational friction, and come out the other side with the numbers pointing in the right direction.
He's also explicit about being a binary thinker: either fully committed to something or not engaged at all. It's a disposition that makes him a difficult person to have in the room for half-measures, but a very useful one when a company needs someone to go all-in on a market opportunity.
His mentorship philosophy runs counter to how most senior leaders claim to operate. He doesn't just advise - he actively recommends promising team members for stretch opportunities, paying forward a career philosophy rooted in "perpetual learning."
Strickland's stated goal is to make Ignition the definitive revenue operations platform for professional services businesses globally. That means going deeper into the accounting space while expanding meaningfully into marketing agencies, legal firms, and consulting practices - industries that share the same fundamental problem: they're great at their craft and bad at getting paid for it.
The January 2025 CEO appointment coincided with Amy Foo joining as CFO - a signal that the company is building for a specific kind of maturity. Not just revenue growth, but the financial infrastructure and operational discipline that supports it at scale.
In early 2026, Ignition launched AI-powered Price Insights for professional services firms - a tool that helps firms benchmark and set pricing with data rather than instinct. It's a natural extension of the platform's core promise: automate what can be automated, and give businesses cleaner information about the decisions that can't be.
"While AI dominates the conversation, the most pressing need for small businesses is addressing accounts receivable. Cash flow is essential to payroll, vendor payments, growth investments, and operational sustainability."- Greg Strickland, on Ignition's core thesis