Microsoft cloud consultancy Speedy Circle has appointed George Stavrakakis as its new A/NZ managing director, whereas firm co-founder Daniel McPherson returns to take up the CTO function.
Stavrakakis brings 4 a long time {of professional} expertise to the agency, with virtually half of that spent in senior roles at Microsoft, together with as public sector director previous to becoming a member of Cevo and later beginning his personal GenAI advisory.
He replaces Cassandra Ashworth after barely six months within the function, whereas fellow latest recruit Rodney Hobbs has additionally departed, with Speedy Circle co-founder Daniel McPherson returning to Australia to take over Hobbs’ CTO duties.
“These are thrilling occasions as we scale throughout the area with expanded choices and stronger experience to assist shoppers innovate and extract most worth from their Microsoft and AI investments,” said international CEO Harold Punter. “I’m assured that with George and Daniel’s expertise, concentrate on individuals, and their approachable management type, they’ll assist ship excellent outcomes.”
Punter established the Amsterdam-headquartered consultancy alongside McPherson in 2008, earlier than launching an Australian outlet the next 12 months. Nevertheless, the native follow has seen an particularly fast acceleration over the previous few years, pushed by a string of acquisitions and the backing of personal fairness agency Mentha Capital. It now has a regional headcount of round 150 professionals.
George Stavrakakis
Overseeing that rising enterprise can be Stavrakakis, after spending the previous eighteen months as a co-founder of AI enterprise studio InnovateGPT, previous to which he was the Victoria normal supervisor for AWS-focused consultancy Cevo. Earlier than that, he spent twenty years with Microsoft, together with as a director of its schooling follow along with main the tech big’s Australian public sector enterprise.
“Speedy Circle is a staff of proficient A/NZ pioneers,” Stavrakakis mentioned. “It’s rewarding to work with people who’re devoted to serving to shoppers maximise their Microsoft expertise investments, significantly with the degrees of AI funding and Copilot adoption forecast for 2025. Collectively, we’ll proceed to set excessive requirements in delivering transformative and impactful options.”
Daniel McPherson
In the meantime, McPherson, who kicked off his profession in Adelaide, will reprise his function as chief expertise officer for Australia, after spending many of the previous two and a half a long time overseas, together with with Microsoft in Holland and the UK. Amongst different C-suite management roles, he beforehand served as Speedy Circle’s chief working officer out of Amsterdam.
Talking on his return downunder, which follows the latest launch of a neighborhood AI centre of excellence, McPherson mentioned; “As a co-founder of Speedy Circle, coming residence from the Netherlands, I’m desperate to collaborate with our friends at Microsoft to drive new outcomes for shoppers. My focus can be to assist organisations undertake and operationalise AI whereas mitigating dangers and lowering prices.”
