A successful transformation requires an experienced hand at the tiller. Matthew Row, Business Services Director at Ping Identity, has such experience at his disposal. We spoke to Row a year ago, at which point he was the Global SS&P Director. He has a vibrant history of delivering business transformations, and Ping Identity – a platform that manages identifies, access, and governance for enterprise organisations – is a business that needs to keep ahead of the curve. Said enterprise organisations manage billions of digital identities, meaning Ping needs to offer a high quality experience. So when it came time for an overhaul, Row was ready to dive in.
When we spoke to Row previously, he noted that 2025 would be an important year for Ping Identity. The plan was for its function to support the delivery of critical strategic initiatives. Since then, the business has made progress in line with that vision. Ping has continued expanding its customer base through significant new customer wins, along with acquisitions that focus on enhancing the product offering to customers.
“The team has been outstanding in supporting the business in the critical initiatives to build vendor relationships both to expand our product offering, and transform our business – including the adoption of AI – across the business,” Row explains.
Tackling business services
It’s been a learning curve for Row. The increase in his responsibilities has been significant. He’s gone from running the procurement function to leading a multi-disciplinary business services organisation, but he wasn’t phased by the change.
“On day one, back in May 2025, I was immediately responsible for payment fraud prevention, payment runs, insurance coverage, and company-wide travel issues,” Row explains. “An operational focus was imperative. The volume and scale of vendor payments, travel, and expenses meant that the role was significantly operational, making sure all the operations underpinning these areas were working effectively.”
Row’s solution was a focused approach on setting out a transformation plan underpinned by an appropriate team structure. The volume of day-to-day challenges proved huge, so the team sorely needed to concentrate on delivering a long-term fix while sustaining normal operations.
Perfect partnerships
A combination of collaboration, ambitious goals, and firm deadlines have allowed Ping to accomplish what it set out to do. On the 1st of September, the business simultaneously went live with NetSuite, Navan for Travel, Coupa for end-to-end source-to-pay, including contracting, payments, and expenses, and Relish for vendor fraud prevention. Ping reached a stable position where all critical KPIs were met from day one. This was supported by Ping’s implementation partner, CrossCountry Consulting, CrossCountry supported the broader office of the CFO from an accounting standpoint at Ping. It was recommended by Coupa as a leading implementation partner, and delivered the end-to-end Coupa implementation across all modules, including a parallel risk and controls framework alongside the implementation.”
“CrossCountry’s knowledge of the modules was absolutely outstanding,” Row explains. “They were open to adjusting the implementation plan to spend a month delivering detailed training to our team while they went through the build phase. That was the secret to the success of the project. It upskilled our teams and enabled a significantly better outcome from testing. CrossCountry’s expertise continues to add massive value in helping us shape the future roadmap for continuous improvement in Coupa. We plan to maintain an incredibly strong relationship.”