Silicon Valley's Coupa plans DC presence, hires federal leader

Silicon Valley-based cloud computing company Coupa Software plans to build a dedicated sales team for its federal business organization and eventually open a Washington, D.C. facility, a company spokesperson confirmed to Washington Technology.

The Washington region presence is “forthcoming” as the federal operations continue to be run out of Coupa’s San Mateo headquarters, the spokesperson told WT.

Coupa’s push into the federal marketplace includes the appointment announced Monday of three-decade technology and government market veteran Andy Malay to regional vice president for the U.S. government marketplace. Malay’s career includes sales leadership roles for IBM’s Workday practice, SAP America and Manguistics.

Coupa designed its cloud spend management platform to help customers manage their financial resources. Malay will be responsible for establishing Coupa’s “Value as a Service” offering in the federal market for agencies to manage contracts and procurement processes.

Malay currently has a team of sales and software consultants for Coupa’s federal initiative. The federal team will also include subject matter and software experts with staffing numbers currently undetermined, the Coupa spokesperson told WT.

The company’s current federal portfolio involves pilot implementations and Coupa is currently not listed on any contracts. Coupa was previously on the GSA Schedule but that will be restructured, the spokesperson said.