Avanade appoints Doug Robinson as CEO for Australia and New Zealand
Australia’s tech consultancy leadership musical chairs has continued with the appointment of former IBM Consulting regional managing partner Doug Robinson as Avanade’s new A/NZ CEO.
Doug Robinson joins Avanade in Sydney after a period as an independent advisor (including for a year to Avanade-owner Accenture), which was preceded by two decades at IBM, latterly as IBM Consulting’s managing partner for A/NZ and ASEAN businesses.
He replaces Carla Ramchand, who was this month appointed A/NZ CEO for Cognizant, while his later IBM A/NZ successor and Accenture alum David Ellis has recently handed managing partner duties to former Accenture senior executive Russell Smyth.
“With over three decades of leadership in the industry, advising clients and working across the Asia Pacific building and scaling businesses, Doug is well positioned to lead our A/NZ business, and I’m confident he’ll will play a key role in accelerating our growth and strengthening the value we deliver to our stakeholders,” said Avanade growth markets president Bhavya Kapoor.
Robinson first joined IBM in 2003, leading the tech giant’s travel & transport segment in Australia and Asia Pacific supply chain practice, with time spent as account director for Qantas, BHP, and Air Canada based out of Sydney and Montreal. He was then appointed Asia Pacific vice president for distribution & industrial, before leading IBM Consulting regionally for four years.
In his new role, Robinson will have responsibility for driving Avanade’s strategy across Australia and New Zealand and leading the business through what it says is already a significant period of growth and AI-driven transformation.
“I join at a time when Microsoft’s world‑class AI technology and Accenture’s enterprise‑scale transformation capability are coming together to reshape how organisations operate,” Robinson said. “What will truly reinvent businesses and industries is the combination of our clients’ ambition, our people’s capability, and the technologies we can access, and I’m energised for what’s ahead.”
In addition to his IT consulting sector career, Robinson is also a non-executive director of Federation University Australia, and was previously an inaugural advisory board member of professional services M&A specialist SCD Advisory.
