Eithne Devine-Hynes, the newly appointed CEO of DeltaXignia (formerly DeltaXML), brings over 30 years of experience in information communication technology companies, ranging from small to large enterprises. She has taken over the leadership of the company from its founder, Robin La Fontaine, who led the organization for 25 years. Eithne is focused on growing the company through a reinvention of its go-to-market strategy, proving out the opportunities of structured content and data compare and merge in new target markets, continuing to build presence in Content/Document Management solutions and proving out use cases in AI and digital transformation. A change agent and exemplary business leader, Eithne has experience of working and living in locations across the globe. Describing herself, she says, “I’m a wife, mother, daughter, sister, aunt, great aunt in mid-life with a lot of globe-trotting life experience behind me, approaching the future optimistically with energy and innate confidence.” “Driven” is how Eithne defines herself in a word.
As CEO, she is excited about achieving new milestones. She is currently steering a five-year strategy to reposition DeltaXignia from a product-centric commodity software seller to an enterprise solutions provider. This ambitious goal involves significant transformation, which Eithne and her team have already begun in earnest.
The Path Before Stepping into the CEO Role
After completing her university education in southern England, Eithne began her career at IDC in London as an industry analyst. She then moved to a role at SAP UK; later, she was assigned to SAP’s corporate headquarters in Germany, where she worked for a Board Member, followed by a move to Asia Pacific, based in Singapore, with a regional remit. After a few years, she returned to her native country of Ireland to continue her career with SAP. Eithne then made a significant career shift when she joined a start-up in the software telecommunications space. At the time, it was in early-stage growth mode, and she built and led its marketing function over a 5-year period. From there, she went to Dell Technologies, where she spent 13 years. According to Eithne, she was part of the team that built Dell Software Group (which was subsequently dismantled and sold), managed product lines for new industrial Edge devices, navigated and implemented new deal governance requirements after the Dell-EMC merger, set up operations for the new Cloud subscription offering in EMEA (Europe, Middle East and Africa) and APJC (Asia Pacific, Japan & China), and finally worked on major global sales transformation initiatives. “This vast range of experience and exposure has added a breadth and depth to my skill base across business functions,” Eithne says.
According to Eithne¸ prior to joining DeltaXignia, some highlights and key milestones of her career include moving from one country to another – from her home country Ireland to England to Germany to Singapore, and then back to Ireland. “Other highlights were gaining experiences during my work at different major blue-chip companies, which gave me insights to help build out my broad perspectives on global business,” she adds.
Eithne says that her career before stepping into the role of CEO was focused on gaining broad experience and exposure across various businesses, functions, and geographical regions. It was also driven by a growth mindset and a commitment to continuous learning. She continuously added to her qualifications over the years, enhancing her expertise and opening new doors of opportunities – such as her most recent diploma in Sustainability and Corporate Social Responsibility. “This has given me a rich tapestry of personal and professional experience and education, which I believe, helps enormously in my current CEO role,” Eithne says.
Eithne’s path to the upper echelons of the business world has mostly been challenge-free, especially in the initial phase of her career. “I have been exceedingly lucky not to have hit roadblocks until quite well advanced in my career,” Eithne says. “When those roadblocks came, I had significant experience behind me and a large supportive professional network.” She believes that roadblocks come with silver linings.
She explains that challenging times forge personal and professional focus, encourage reflection on life goals, and instill a determination to maximize the life opportunities that one has as a human.
The Role of the CEO
For Eithne, becoming a CEO has been unexpectedly life-fulfilling from the perspective of realizing her professional purpose. She believes the role has allowed her to pull together all the strands of her diverse experience, in addition to giving her a perspective on the business – it is something she had been yearning for but had not realized.
Eithne took charge of CEO at DeltaXignia in September 2024. She points out that one of the most fun and rewarding aspects of her current role is that she has insight into the workings of the whole organization. She had always wanted this perspective on the business, but it was only after taking the reins of this position, that she realized just how personally satisfying and rewarding it would be.
“I am a connector of dots – connecting themes, people, potential solutions to problems, and the CEO seat allows me to bring this skillset across the company,” Eithne says. She enjoys having oversight of sales and marketing, IT and operations, product management, development, R&D, finance, and human resources. Driving the right connections and ensuring cross-fertilization of knowledge and talent, both inside and outside of the business, is always a top priority for her.
Brief Introduction to DeltaXignia
Over 20 years ago, Robin, an accomplished software developer, founded DeltaXML to solve the complex challenge of managing change to content and data over time. In December 2024, Eithne led the rebranding effort, renaming the company from DeltaXML to DeltaXignia, a provider of content and data compare and merge software solutions. She explains that the new name marks the start of a new chapter in the company’s journey — highlighting its portfolio’s evolution as it expands beyond its sole focus on XML. It also reflects their commitment to quality in the compare and merge space.
The founder of the company has largely stepped back from the business, Eithne informs. The company is now an Employee Ownership Trust, meaning the employees hold the controlling share of DeltaXignia. “We have set out our five-year growth strategy and are currently in the early stages of execution, putting the key pieces and players in place to drive our strategy forward,” Eithne says. She adds that DeltaXignia’s foundations are solid, with blue-chip customers who have been with them for 20 years, loyal team members, strong recurring revenues, and a highly relevant product portfolio for the data era.
In her first six months of leading DeltaXignia, Eithne has brought significant change. In addition to the company’s name change, she has led the pivot of the company’s go-to-market approach from a technical and horizontal commodity product to an enterprise solutions provider with vertical market specialization. “While there is still some way to go in this multi-phased change, we are already starting to see the benefits,” Eithne says.
Responsibilities and Work-Life Balance
As CEO, Eithne is responsible for the company’s strategy and culture. In her role, she ensures that team members understand the business vision and direction and that they are empowered to create their functional strategy and execution plans. She unifies all strands of the business under a cohesive strategy, in addition to making sure that all roads lead back to her.
Additionally, innovation is a “significant thread” of her strategy. She oversees this aspect of her responsibility by identifying and driving their connections with external stakeholders that can help guide and support their advancement. And, as a leader, Eithne drives focus, motivation, and discipline through regular communication, exchange of perspectives, employee performance management, and team engagement.
Eithne’s typical day involves working remotely, following the usual cadences of meetings with her management team, engaging with customers or partners, and analyzing or strategizing the company’s path forward. She points out that it involves a mix of meetings and both online and offline work.
Although DeltaXignia is a remote working company, Eithne and her team meet in person for two days either every week or every other week, depending on needs, at their office in Malvern, England. She shares that she travels from Ireland to England, every week, to spend time in the office for key internal or external meetings and to meet her team members. When she is traveling, her focus shifts to maximizing her travel efforts by spending as much time as possible with people.
DeltaXignia adopted remote work following the outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic. Like many other companies, the organization moved from office-based to remote working overnight, Eithne points out. “Given the pressures of time, traffic on roads, and team members’ preference for this new quality of life, there has been no return to full-time work from the office,” she adds. “We do not plan to return to it in the future as well.”
The remote working environment, combined with a regular travel schedule, allows Eithne to balance her work and life demands. She can devote time focused on both the company and team members. She explains that the balance helps her maintain the energy and focus required to constantly stay on the ball.
Considerate Leader Impacting the Next Generation
Eithne notes that companies across industries encounter ever-evolving challenges. She points to the challenges such as climate change, evolving directives across the globe for companies, and the threat and opportunity presented by AI, cybersecurity, and ever-changing vertical market regulations. “These are all top of mind for DeltaXignia,” she adds.
At DeltaXignia, the average age of team members is late twenties to early thirties. Eithne explains that these are often pivotal life stages where individuals are seeking career growth, considering major investments like home ownership, and perhaps contemplating starting a family of their own. They are possibly envisioning a future for themselves and their children where they can live in a peaceful, low-pollution, economically viable world – where access to education and opportunity is equitable for all people and communities, according to her.
“I lead my organization with consideration of our team members’ needs,” Eithne says. “This includes thinking about how to enhance our benefits offerings and ensuring we have the right expertise to drive our strategy for the future.” She also thinks about providing roles that offer them autonomy and growth opportunities and developing their sustainability and corporate social responsibility initiatives.
“Through my considerate leadership, I hope to inspire others to adopt this approach in their own leadership journeys as they progress and mature in their careers,” Eithne says.
The Vision for the Future
Eithne’s vision for DeltaXignia’s future is to grow the business significantly over the next five years. Initially, she intends to do that by doubling down on their core market in document and content management systems, pivoting to become an enterprise software solutions provider for key regulated vertical markets, and proving the use cases for their software in new opportunity areas such as digital transformation and AI.
As DeltaXignia is a small global software company, Eithne believes that they must stay exceedingly focused on their goals. Along with that, her stress is on constantly prioritizing where they invest time, money, and resources, and being laser-focused on the returns. “Navigating the business landscape is a daily challenge, and figuring out where we should play and deciding on the opportunities where we wish to engage is crucial,” she says.
Personal Goals as CEO
In this first passage of her CEO journey, Eithne wants to successfully execute her 5-year strategy to grow and evolve DeltaXignia and its offering, helping customers and partners address their challenges in the content and data space. She is eager to execute all the elements in a shorter timescale.
“I’m seeking to build a solid track record of considerate and innovative leadership that can carry DeltaXignia and myself through to a successful future,” Eithne says.
Message to Aspiring Women Leaders
“Say ‘YES’ to every growth opportunity” is Eithne’s first piece of advice to aspiring women leaders. She encourages them to continually seek learning experiences, network constantly in every new role they take, and talk to others and learn from them. She also tells them to have a growth mindset generally and consistently improve and add to their qualifications.
“Above all else believe that your skills, capabilities, and experiences are as worthy as the next person and have the confidence to speak up and share your insights – your perspective may be the unique view that can be the game changer in a situation,” she adds.
What Is Success?
Professionally, Eithne has always measured her success by the personal growth she achieves in whatever role she is performing. She explains that it means adopting a growth mindset to understand how she can develop herself to perform best in the role to achieve the key objectives or metrics. In parallel, Eithne is also assessing her impact on others. She strives to evaluate her contributions to the team and individuals she is collaborating with, aiming to leave a lasting positive impression and impact wherever possible.
“Personally, I measure my success by the contributions I make to my family and friends – in tangible and intangible ways, I positively shape the lives of those closest to me,” she says.
