About Us

Surf Accounts is a wholly owned Irish company that was founded in 2011. Surf Accounts is a member of the Relate Software Group, the largest supplier of software to the accountancy profession in Ireland. Relate was formed in 2002 and has offices in Dublin, the UK and India.

Surf Accounts is a cloud based accounting software and CRM system perfectly suited to small and medium sized businesses. Our easy to use online accounts packages help business users take charge and produce their accounts where and whenever they choose.

In 2021, Relate Software joined forces with Thesaurus Software, and we are now jointly operating as Bright. Click here to find out more about Bright.

Stephen Murdoch

Chief Executive Officer

Stephen Murdoch

Stephen has deep tech domain experience spanning hardware, software and services. His professional ‘signature’ is the achievement of strategic, transformational change in businesses at scale. He has held senior executive positions at IBM and Dell and was most recently CEO of Micro Focus, a global software business.

Paul Byrne

Founder and Board Director

Paul Byrne

Paul is one of the founder members of Bright, starting Thesaurus Software in the early 90s. A chartered accountant, with many years in practice, he brings vast experience of the payroll software market to Bright’s Board.

Bob McKay

Chief Financial Officer

Bob McKay

Bob has over 20 years’ experience in various senior Finance roles in the Tech industry across both Corporate and Private Equity sectors. Bob is focused on partnering with the Business to maximise the Groups significant growth potential while leading the Finance Team and transforming Bright’s Financial systems, processes, reporting and Business Partnering capabilities.

Laura Murphy

Chief People Officer

Laura Murphy

Laura’s industry experience brings deep, commercial understanding of our employees’ and customers’ needs. Laura has overseen the integration of personnel across multiple acquisitions, ensuring company values and employee engagement are retained and maximised.

Ross Webster

Chief Software Architect

Ross Webster

Ross is a multi-disciplined software creator and manager with over 15 years experience in building, designing and delivering desktop, web and mobile applications. Ross is the visionary and lead developer behind BrightPay, our multi-award-winning payroll product.

Richard Grey

Chief Information Security Officer

Richard Grey

Richard has the specialist cyber security knowledge to keep corporate and customer data safe. His work helps to ensure our compliance with industry-standard best practice, including ISO 27001 and GDPR, for our on-premise and cloud products.

Ben Bishop

Chief Product & Technology Officer

Ben Bishop

Since 2010 Ben has worked in Accountancy, Finance, Payroll and ERP software from some of the UKs largest suppliers and has an in-depth knowledge of the industry, its key players and the software landscape. Ben is responsible for Product Strategy and Engineering execution across Brights full portfolio of products.

Richie McMahon

Head of Automation & Innovation

Richie McMahon

A founder of Relate Software and Surf Accounts, Richie heads Surf Accounts, Surf Accounts Production and Surf Payroll products division. He has over 35 years’ experience in software development for the Accountancy and SME markets.

Dipak Guharay

Head of Indian Operations

Dipak Guharay

Dipak has 35 years’ project management, systems analysis and software development experience across industries as varied as accounting, pharma, and heavy industry. At Bright, he focuses on continued product innovation and development.

Neeraja Sankar

Director of Strategic Projects

Neeraja Sankar

Neeraja is focused on driving key strategic projects that improve efficiency and drive company value. Neeraja has previous experience managing mergers and acquisitions and value creation projects across various industries.

Alexander Schwendtner

Chief Revenue Officer

Alexander Schwendtner

Heading up the Sales and Marketing functions at Bright, Alex brings an information-driven mindset to upgrading the customer experience, so our users choose to keep renewing from year one through to year ten and beyond.

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