Publicis Sapient recruits Gavin Seewooruttun as Data & AI lead for Australia
Digital transformation consultancy Publicis Sapient has recruited former EY Asia Pacific AI consulting lead partner Gavin Seewooruttun to head up its Data & AI division in Australia.
Seewooruttun joins Publicis Sapient in the newly-created role out of Melbourne after the past four years as managing director of AI business Cognis Consulting, before which he spent close to a decade and a half between EY and Wipro in Australia and the United Kingdom.
He becomes the business transformation consultancy’s second major recent recruit with senior Big Four experience, following the appointment of former Deloitte lead client services partner Angela Robinson as country managing director at the end of last year.
“Gavin is an incredibly important addition to our Australian leadership team,” Robinson stated. “He has a proven track-record as an innovative and trusted advisor to clients, and his appointment reflects the importance of Australia for Publicis Sapient’s continued global growth and vision as a leader in AI and data innovation.”
Seewooruttun was noted for having previously built one of world’s largest AI teams during his five-year tenure serving large financial institutions, government departments, resources companies, and multinational retailers as AI consulting lead for the Asia Pacific branch of Ernst & Young, which he originally joined as head of analytics upon its 2015 purchase of C3.
Prior to that, he spent six years at Wipro across two stints in the UK and Australia, having started out at BAE following an electronic engineering bachelors from the University of Southampton, complemented by a banking & finance degree from LSE. Most recently, he was co-founder and CTO of Advaise, which focuses on automated solutions for the professional services sector.
Now, as vice president and Australian data & AI lead at Publicis Sapient, he will be tasked with helping local clients harness the technology to transform customer experience, create new revenue streams, and drive operational excellence, while supporting the firm’s prioritisation of AI-driven offerings in accelerating its strategic growth plans across the APAC region.
“I am incredibly excited to contribute to a forward-thinking team that is passionately committed to leveraging data and AI to drive impactful transformation,” Seewooruttun said. “Australia is poised to be a leader in the digital age, and I’m eager to help our clients unlock new opportunities and achieve sustainable growth through innovative AI-driven strategies.”
Formed in 2015, Publicis Sapient is the business consulting arm of global marketing giant Publicis Groupe, and has a headcount of more than 24,000 professionals in over two dozen countries. The firm has been quietly building up its local capabilities in recent years, including through the 2023 acquisition of Salesforce consultancy Tquila and earlier purchase of Third Horizon.
