IBM vet joins Avalara as senior vice president of global sales

Seattle-based tax software company Avalara has named Sean Flynn as the company's senior vice president of global sales.

Flynn, who was announced in the role on Tuesday, spent close to 15 years at IBM earlier in his career in a variety of leadership roles and served in the Army as an armor officer. Avalara said in a release Flynn will help with the company's goal of hiring and retaining veterans.

“Sean is an established people-centric leader and sales professional with a track record of success in fast-growth startups and multinational technology companies,” Chief Revenue Officer Kimberly Deobald said in a release. “He’ll play a critical role managing our new and existing sales teams and will strengthen our worldwide sales organization."

Flynn was most recently the chief customer officer of the education tech company InStride, where he spent more than three years, according to his LinkedIn page. Before that, he spent more than a year as the U.S. CEO of the corporate fitness company Gympass, before which he was at IBM. In his role with Avalara, Flynn will oversee new and existing sales, customer success and sales development.

Avalara, founded in 2004, helps clients with consumer use tax, sales and use tax, and international compliance. Its clients include Zillow, Netflix and Converse. The company says it has more than 30,000 customers. In January, Avalara conducted layoffs, according to LinkedIn posts.

Avalara went public in 2018. The company was taken private in October through an $8.4 billion acquisition by private equity firm Vista Equity Partners.