Avalara, Inc., the agentic AI leader in global tax and compliance, has appointed Hugo Sarrazin as Chief Executive Officer, marking a major leadership transition as the company accelerates its AI-driven growth strategy. Avalara co-founder and longtime CEO Scott McFarlane will transition into an advisory role to support the company’s continued evolution and long-term strategy.
The leadership change comes as Avalara expands its position in AI-powered tax and compliance automation, focusing on innovation, operational scale, and global market growth.
Avalara’s appointment of Hugo Sarrazin signals the company’s next phase of growth as enterprises increasingly seek AI-powered tax and compliance automation solutions.
Sarrazin brings more than three decades of leadership experience across enterprise software, AI innovation, digital transformation, and operational scaling. In his new role, he will oversee Avalara’s global strategy, execution, and product innovation efforts while joining the company’s Board of Directors.
"I'm excited to join the leader for tax and compliance that leverages proprietary data and deep domain expertise to deliver intelligent, dynamic solutions for customers worldwide," said Sarrazin. "Avalara is helping define how AI agents can automate and simplify compliance at global scale and already has a leading AI-powered platform and market presence that few companies can replicate. The opportunity now is to accelerate innovation even further, turning that advantage into more seamless outcomes for customers and partners globally."
Before joining Avalara, Sarrazin served as President and CEO of Udemy, where he led AI-driven innovation initiatives, product-led growth, and strategic expansion efforts.
He also previously held leadership roles at UKG as President and Chief Product and Technology Officer, overseeing cloud transformation programs, AI solution expansion, and strategic acquisitions.
Earlier in his career, Sarrazin spent 26 years at McKinsey & Company, where he advised global enterprises on digital transformation and mergers and acquisitions. He also co-founded McKinsey Digital Labs.
Scott McFarlane, who co-founded Avalara in 2004, will continue supporting the company as an advisor following more than two decades of leadership.
Under McFarlane’s direction, Avalara evolved from a startup into a global tax and compliance technology provider serving more than 1 million businesses worldwide. The company completed its IPO in 2018 and built a large ecosystem of ERP, ecommerce, and financial system integrations.
"Avalara is stronger today than at any point in our history," said McFarlane. "We've built a category leader with real scale and a platform that's becoming more critical as tax and compliance grow more complex. The next chapter is about moving faster and delivering more for our customers and partners. Hugo brings the operational and technology leadership needed to accelerate what comes next."
Avalara continues to position itself at the forefront of AI-powered tax compliance technology. The company’s platform processes tens of billions of transactions annually while helping businesses manage increasingly complex global tax and regulatory requirements.
Its recent innovations include Agentic Tax and Compliance™ and the Avalara LLM framework for agentic applications, which are designed to automate tax calculations, filings, exemption certificate management, and broader compliance workflows.
As enterprises continue investing in AI-native operational platforms, Avalara is focusing on embedding AI directly into compliance systems to improve efficiency, accuracy, and real-time decision-making capabilities.
About Avalara
Avalara is the agentic AI platform for global tax and compliance. For more than two decades, Avalara has built one of the most expansive libraries of tax content and integrations in the industry, processing more than 54 billion transactions annually and supporting millions of businesses worldwide. The company's purpose-built AI agents automate end-to-end compliance with greater precision, from tax calculations and return filings to exemption certificate management and beyond. For more information, visit Avalara.com.
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