UKG Inc.

What does UKG own?
UKG owns the UKG Pro and UKG Ready HCM platforms, UKG Bryte AI, the UKG Marketplace ecosystem, and the Great Place To Work culture measurement business acquired in 2021.

Is UKG publicly traded?
No. UKG is privately held by private equity investors. Both predecessor companies were public at earlier points: Kronos before 2007 and Ultimate Software before 2019.

Who founded UKG?
UKG was formed by merger, so it has no single founder. Its predecessors were founded by Scott Scherr (Ultimate Software, 1990) and Mark S. Ain (Kronos, 1977). Aron Ain, Mark's son, led Kronos and then UKG until 2024.

Where is UKG headquartered?
UKG maintains dual headquarters in Weston, Florida, the former home of Ultimate Software, and Lowell, Massachusetts, the former home of Kronos.

How many brands does UKG own?
UKG operates primarily under the UKG master brand with two platform products, Pro and Ready, plus the Great Place To Work business and the UKG Marketplace ecosystem.

Who owns UKG?
Hellman and Friedman is the controlling owner at roughly 50 percent. Blackstone holds about 20 to 25 percent, with GIC, CPP Investments, and JMI Equity holding smaller stakes.

UKG has two roots. Kronos Incorporated was founded in 1977 by Mark Ain, an MIT-trained engineer, to automate time and attendance tracking with dedicated time-clock terminals. It became the dominant vendor in workforce management, going public in 1992 before being taken private by private equity investors in 2007.

Ultimate Software was founded in 1990 by Scott Scherr in Weston, Florida. Its UltiPro product became a leading cloud HR and payroll suite for mid-market and enterprise employers, and the company was a fixture on best-places-to-work lists before going private in 2019 in Hellman and Friedman's $11 billion take-private.

The merger, announced February 20, 2020 and completed April 1 of that year, combined two profitable companies with complementary products: Ultimate's HR and payroll strength with Kronos's workforce management dominance. The combined entity adopted the Ultimate Kronos Group name in October 2020, universally shortened to UKG. It kept dual headquarters in the two predecessor cities.

Post-merger, the company integrated products onto shared platforms and invested in AI features including UKG Bryte, an AI assistant layered across the suite. It also acquired smaller businesses including Great Place To Work, the workplace culture assessment business, in 2021, and workforce intelligence vendor Quorbit. Aron Ain ceded the CEO role to Jennifer Morgan in July 2024, moving to executive chairman.

The company cut about 950 jobs in April 2026, roughly 6 percent of staff, as part of a restructuring program. Headcount estimates as of mid-2026 are approximately 15,000 to 16,000 employees worldwide, concentrated in North America and a large India development organization.

UKG's most serious public episode was the December 2021 ransomware attack on its legacy Kronos Private Cloud service, which knocked out payroll and timekeeping for thousands of customers for weeks. Several customers sued, alleging inadequate security; UKG settled litigation and migrated customers to newer platforms. The incident remains a landmark case in SaaS availability risk.

The company also faces recurring labor disputes of a familiar kind for PE-owned software firms: restructuring-driven layoffs, including the roughly 950-job cut in April 2026, and criticism of severance terms. No major regulatory penalties apply to the company.