AI and cloud consultancy LAB3 recruits three new executives
AI and cloud consultancy LAB3 has recruited former Deloitte partner John Gavallas to accelerate its AI-powered managed services offering, having recently added Andrew Silver and Annette Yalda.
Gavallas joins LAB3 in Melbourne after having earlier spent seven and a half years at Deloitte, including as head of its DevOps engineering practice, while Silver and Yalda bring backgrounds from Capgemini and NCS to their new roles as senior client executives.
LAB3 said Gavallas’ background in agentic AI and scaling cloud practices would drive the “next evolution” of its managed service practice, with its AI and automation-powered offering helping clients to “reduce complexity, optimise costs, and drive continuous improvement.”
“John’s track record modernising IT operations and pioneering agentic AI capabilities aligns perfectly with our vision for the future of managed services,” said LAB3 chief executive and former IBM A/NZ managing director Kerry Purcell. “Together, we’re helping organisations harness AI to deliver faster outcomes, stronger security, and greater operational efficiency.”
John Gavallas altogether brings two decades worth of IT and managed services experience to LAB3, having previously been a partner at Deloitte after joining the firm upon its 2018 acquisition of Mexia, where he served as managed services practice lead. Prior to that, he spent time in operations and engineering roles at OBS (later part of Empired and then Capgemini) and Logica (now CGI).
Most recently, Gavallas has been busy building his own agentic AI engine Xenta, which in his own words is now being put into a much bigger vehicle; “The traditional, headcount-heavy model of managed services is broken,” he said. “The future isn’t outsourcing more people. It’s deploying intelligent agents that automate repetitive operations and augment expert teams.”
Andrew Silver meanwhile recently joined LAB3 with a public sector-focus after close to seven years in client director roles between Capgemini and Empired. Earlier, he time spent time at NTT Data-owned Oakton, SMS (at the time of its NRI-owned ASG acquisition), and Avanade, the latter which he originally joined in New York where he also worked in sales roles at AvePoint and Iron Mountain.
Further helping to support the firm’s AI and digital transformation service offerings as another senior client executive based out of Sydney is Annette Yalda, who also incidentally spent time at AvePoint. More recently, she has served as a principal client engagement manager for specialist Microsoft consultancy Engage Squared and a senior account manager at NCS Australia.
