Nov 3 (Reuters) - Deel on Monday appointed former Intuit

executive Joe Kauffman as president and chief financial

officer to support the payroll startup's possible plans to go

public as soon as next year.

Kauffman succeeds founding CFO Philippe Bouaziz, who will

take on the newly created role of executive chairman and chief

strategy officer, said the Andreessen Horowitz-backed startup,

which was valued at $17.3 billion in a fundraise last month.

The California-based company is strengthening its financial

and governance structures with new executive hires, as it

pursues further expansion after striking 13 deals in six years.

"We don't have an exact timing in place now, but IPO is

definitely the intent," Kauffman told Reuters. "With two IPOs

under my belt, I'm looking for a hat-trick."

Kauffman previously served as the head of corporate

development at New Oriental Education & Technology Group

and as CFO of TAL Education Group ( TAL ), which he helped take

public.

Before joining Deel, he spent more than a decade at Intuit's

credit and financial management platform, Credit Karma, most

recently as its CEO. He drove its international expansion, with

revenue climbing to $2.3 billion in the fiscal year ended July

31 from over $100 million in the calendar year 2014.

The appointment comes amid Deel's ongoing litigation with

rival Rippling, which has sued Deel alleging racketeering,

trade-secret misappropriation and unfair competition. Deel filed

a defamation suit against Rippling in April, calling the claims

a multi-year smear campaign.

Deel crossed $100 million monthly revenue for the first time

in September and it generates roughly $15 million to $17 million

in earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and

amortization.

"We're at the right trajectory where we should be top line

driven ... It's not about constraints and costs reining in. It's

about how do we reinvest to really go back after the opportunity

and drive top line even more," Kauffman said.

Founded in 2019, Deel offers services to facilitate

international hiring in compliance with local laws, contractor

engagement and automated payroll processing for global

businesses.

Deel has made major executive appoints recently including

Harish Sharma as chief risk Officer, Anthony Luis Rodriguez as

compliance chief and DeAnn Work as general counsel.