Today I’d like to take a moment to meet a truly outstanding member of the Xero team, Kathryn Walker, aka ‘^OG’ or ‘The Orange Girl’.
Catherine was part of Xero’s founding crew and, almost 17 years on, is our longest-serving employee and has seen Xero grow from its humble beginnings on her dining room table in her Wellington home to the global company it is today.
Kathryn was an early adopter of social media business communities and spoke at our first Xerocon about how businesses could leverage social media – ahead of their time. He wrote Xero’s first “User Guide” and implemented an integrated community and customer service model at Xero in its early days. Customer experience is something we place great importance on and continue to develop and promote today.
Catherine has made many valuable contributions to Xero over the years. As many small businesses know, building a company means doing it all, and when Xero was founded, Catherine built desks, bought stationery, baked for team events, tested products, visited partners, hosted webinars, answered customer tickets. Holidays, knitted jumpers for new babies and much more. Catherine has interacted with thousands of customers online and has been a critical advocate for them, channeling all customer feedback to the right teams. His passion lies in helping our customers and he has held many hands – sharing lots of videos and screenshots showing users how to do things on the Xero platform and supporting users through the toughest times. OG has come in at all hours of the day and night to help users from airplanes, trains, park benches, grocery stores, restaurants, mountaintops, or when stuck at home.
Catherine was instrumental in launching Xero’s US operations. After establishing an office in an incubator in San Francisco, he later moved to New York, his dream location, and has lived there for the past 10 years in midtown Manhattan.
Catherine’s impact on Xero and our community cannot be overstated. He was a dedicated community manager, passionate teacher and patient listener to both customers and Xero employees. In the early days of Xero and social media, it introduced a whole new style of online customer support with the simultaneous integration of community building. Nothing can diminish the incredible contribution Catherine made to Xero. No wonder users have referred to her as our “xero mom”.
OG, thanks for all you’ve done. As you leave the business today, know that your impact on Xero is legendary and we wish you all the best in your future endeavours.
