He’s the man behind thousands of headlines over the last three decades – and now he finds himself in the news.

Business journalist Darren Slade is leaving the media sector to take up a new role overseeing the written content of a fast-growing cloud accounting software provider.

The 55-year-old joins iplicit next month from his post as Group Business Editor for three daily news titles – the Southern Daily Echo, the Daily Echo Bournemouth and the Dorset Echo.

His last day with Newsquest, publisher of the titles, is Friday March 3.

iplicit, which has an office in Westbourne, says there is a burgeoning appetite among CFOs in the not for profit and commercial sectors alike for education about the advantages of moving to true cloud software.

The award-winning company says that even with a dedicated in-house content creator, the demand for material to help inform those struggling with legacy, on-premise software is going to be a challenge to keep up with.

As Content Manager at iplicit, Darren’s role will include planning and creating material such as blogs, white papers, research papers and interactive content.

He’ll also help establish iplicit as a thought leader in its sector.

Darren has spent 32 years in journalism and 24 years on daily titles.

He was the Bournemouth Echo’s Local Government Correspondent, Chief Reporter and Business and Technology Editor, before taking on his Group Business Editor role in 2019.

His career in news has included interviewing David Cameron, Theresa May and Bank of England Governor Andrew Bailey.

During the Covid crisis, he was among the regional journalists selected to take part in a Downing Street press conference in front of three million TV viewers.

Darren said: “It was a huge decision to leave the news business after more than three decades and I can’t think of many jobs that would have tempted me away from it.

“I’d been aware of the success of iplicit since its launch in 2019.

“Two of the driving forces behind it were local entrepreneurs who’d both created sizable businesses from Bournemouth start-ups in the past.

“When speaking with CEO Lyndon Stickley, who had been behind the explosive growth of 4-Sight in the 1990s – a Bournemouth based start-up that became an industry standard throughout 30 countries before being acquired – I realised that iplicit was already on a similar track.

“Four years on, not only is iplicit living into its potential but the opportunity has exploded; the advent of Covid, the need for cloud software and the stagnation that is apparent in many of the incumbents all present an opportunity to build a multi-billion pound organisation.

“Being in charge of content production for an opportunity this huge was something I couldn’t resist.

“I’ve loved my time in newsrooms and will always be grateful for the opportunities the industry has given me and for the many brilliant colleagues I’ve worked with.

“Now, I’m hugely excited to be embarking on the next phase of my career with a company that’s on an incredible growth trajectory.”

Lyndon Stickley, pictured left, said: “iplicit is disrupting a multi-billion-pound market, and a large part of achieving this is down to effective education.

“Educational content is key to our strategy at a time when thousands of CFOs and FDs are unsure as to the next step regarding technology.

“Securing a journalist as talented as Darren will be a real spur to the volume of content that we can produce.”

iplicit, brought to market by many of the original team that developed Exchequer Software in the 1990s, has already amassed around 800 customers and 10,000 daily users in the business and charity worlds after barely four years of operation.

It was named Mid-Market and Enterprise Accounting Software of the Year at the Accounting Excellence Awards 2020.

It went on to take gold in the Enterprise Accounting/ERP category of the AccountingWEB Software Awards 2021, voted for by users.

Darren, who lives in Poole, is married with two grown-up sons.

He serves as a trustee for HealthBus, a charity bringing healthcare to homeless people in Bournemouth.

• iplicit.com