Paul Tucker joins Rapid Circle as chief commercial officer with AI focus
Microsoft specialist Rapid Circle has recruited sales executive Paul Tucker as its new chief commercial officer, with the consultancy having recently launched a new ‘rapid’ AI service.
Tucker crosses to Rapid Circle in Melbourne after a brief stint as regional sales leader at Avanade, before which he spent four and half years in senior roles at Microsoft itself with earlier time at Orange Business Services, CSC/HPE, and Dutch telco KPN.
Tucker’s recruitment follows the launch of ‘Rapid Build’, a quick-fire AI-designed app development offering, with the cloud firm having recently stated an AI-first strategy and appointed former A/NZ managing director George Stavrakakis as group CEO.
A one-time aspiring footballer in the UK, Tucker later spent over seven years at KPN to 2007 (a year prior to the formation of Rapid Circle in Holland), before then more than a decade between Getronics, UXC/CSC and Hewlett-Packard Enterprises (now DXC) in Melbourne and Singapore. He then served in A/NZ sales leadership roles for Orange and Microsoft’s consulting line.
“I’m excited to have joined Rapid Circle and its team of AI pioneers,” Tucker said. “What is becoming increasingly clear is that the competitive advantage is not just the AI model itself, it’s the ability to reduce the time between idea and action, remove operational bottlenecks, and enable domain experts to move without waiting on technical teams. That’s where we come in.”
One way Rapid Circle is helping organisations reduce the time from app ideation to deployment is through its new ‘Rapid Build’ service, which claims to slash months of development, complex delivery processes, and huge budgets down to mere hours for a working proof-of-concept at a fraction of the cost. While AI does the leg-work, the firm’s engineers provide the oversight.
The launch of ‘Rapid Build’ in turn follows the traditional cloud firm’s stated ‘AI-first strategy’ as it moves into its next phase of growth, which late last year saw a number of leadership handovers, including Stavrakakis’ relocation to the Netherlands to take over from co-founder Harold Punter as group CEO, and fellow co-founder Daniel McPherson serving as interim A/NZ managing director.
McPherson taking on the role effectively makes him Rapid Circle’s fourth local boss in less than two years, following the departure of Stewart Bairstow in mid-2024 and Cassandra Ashworth’s brief subsequent stint at the helm. Meanwhile, Tucker’s recruitment coincides with former IBM Consulting regional managing partner Doug Robinson’s appointment as A/NZ CEO of Avanade.
