Paychex CEO Jonathan Judge steps down at Tom Golisano’s payroll company in upstate NY

CEO steps down at Golisano’s Paychex Inc.

ROCHESTER, N.Y. — The chief executive of Paychex Inc., Jonathan Judge, is stepping down after nearly six years at the helm of billionaire B. Thomas Golisano’s payroll processing firm in upstate New York.

“Jon resigned his position as CEO to pursue other interests — it’s as straightforward and simple as that,” Golisano told reporters Monday. Asked if it was Judge’s own decision, he said “I assume it was” and described the departure as unexpected.

Golisano hired Judge, 56, a longtime IBM Corp. executive, to replace him as president and CEO in October 2004, but he retained the role of chairman. An executive committee will steer the company, based in the Rochester suburb of Penfield, until a successor is found.

Scraping together $3,000, Golisano launched Paychex at age 30 in 1971. He made three failed runs for governor of New York after amassing his fortune. In his last try in 2002, he spent $75 million of his own money and garnered 14 percent of votes.

Paychex is one of the nation’s largest providers of payroll and human-resource services with 536,000 clients, 12,200 employees and $2 billion in sales. The company’s shares fell 53 cents, or 2 percent, to close at $25.75 Monday.

Judge brought with him “experience and qualifications gained during his 25-year career with IBM” and helped to expand Paychex’s revenue from $1.4 billion to $2 billion, Golisano said.

“For the first four years until we hit the recession, I think everybody was pretty well satisfied,” he said. “We’ve seen a little bit of a mellowing in the recession based on the reasons we’re losing clients — not so many are going out of business.

“It’s pretty basic for us. Now we’ve got to go out and sell more, and the indications are that’s going to start happening.”

Judge tendered his resignation last week and it takes effect at the end of July. “There’s been no indication up to this point that it was even being contemplated,” Golisano said.

Judge is visiting Bermuda on a previously scheduled vacation. In a statement, Judge said he and Paychex “accomplished a great deal together and the company will continue to prosper. I have decided this is a good time for me to move on to my next challenge.”

In the 1960s, while working as a sales manager for a firm preparing payrolls for large businesses, Golisano saw a hole in the market arranging finances for companies with fewer than 100 employees.

Paychex serves mainly small and medium-sized business. The nation’s biggest payroll-processing company, Roseland, N.J.-based Automatic Data Processing Inc., boasts nearly $9 billion in sales.