Clifford Foster to head up Google’s ANZ cloud customer services
Clifford Foster, Deloitte’s Australian systems engineering lead, has departed the Big Four firm to join Google, where he’ll head up the company’s ANZ cloud customer service team.
As Google continues to try and make inroads into an Australian cloud market dominated by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure, the internet search giant has recruited Deloitte partner Clifford Foster to lead its Cloud Customer Service team in Australia and New Zealand.
A Bachelor of Science graduate in Computer Sciences and Mathematics with the University of Pretoria in 1991, Foster will bring three decades of professional experience to his new role with Google, where he’ll take on the title of Vice President. Starting out as a Software Engineer in Johannesburg, Foster then spent two and a half years as a manager at Andersen Consulting (which later on became Accenture).
From there he joined the local branch of IBM, ultimately rising to Financial Services partner and Chief Technology Officer before crossing to the company’s Melbourne office in 2010, where he served as a partner in IBM’s Insurance and Banking practice and globally as a ‘distinguished engineer’. After a decade with IBM, Foster joined EY as a partner in its Asia Pacific Financial Services practice.
For the past six and a half years (after nearly four years at Ernst & Young), he has led Deloitte’s Platform and Systems Engineering offering in Australia and the Asia Pacific out of Melbourne, “which focuses on building and delivering solutions that leverage new and innovative technologies.” Over his thirty year career, Foster has served clients across four continents.
Now, he’ll be tasked with helping to drive Google’s cloud business in the Antipodes. According to recent data from research firm Gartner, AWS and Microsoft’s Azure command 60 percent of the booming Australian public cloud market between them, with respective revenues of $465 million and $393 million in 2020. Google trails a fair way behind in third, bringing in $182 million.