Accenture appoints Dawid Naude, Shawn Thompson and Kelly Reynolds

21 November 2022 Consultancy.com.au

Accenture has made two leadership promotions in its Australia and New Zealand practice, with Dawid Naude taking on the role of Metaverse Continuum lead, and Shawn Thompson appointed as Cyber Resilience lead for the region. The firm has also welcomed Kelly Reynolds as a managing director in its Talent & Organisation team.

Based out of Melbourne, Dawid Naude has been appointed ANZ Metaverse Continuum lead after more than eight years at Accenture across two stints. Originally joining in Brisbane following an associate director role at NAB, Naude then departed for Cloud Sherpas, before the tech advisory was later acquired by his former employer in 2015.

Naude has been with Accenture since, serving as a tech innovation managing director since late 2019.

Dawid Naude, Shawn Thompson and Kelly Reynolds - Accenture

Accenture launched its dedicated metaverse consulting practice – dubbed ‘Metaverse Continuum’ – to the global stage earlier this year, bringing together a multidisciplinary team of 800 specialists across strategy, innovation, creative, customer experience, marketing, and design, build and operations.

Naude’s appointment to oversee the ANZ business comes at the same time as Alyse Sue takes on the newly-created Head of Metaverse Futures role at KPMG.

Naude took to LinkedIn to express his enthusiasm for the emerging technology; “Couldn't be more honoured and excited to jump into a new role. What is the metaverse? It’s where physical and digital blend together. Some concepts are new, some emerging, some are decades old, some are purely hype/fluff, but what’s certain is that things are changing and the future of how we learn, work, consume, play, relax, collect and engage won't be the same.”

Shawn Thompson will likewise take on an ANZ regional leadership role out of Melbourne, appointed as Cyber Resilience lead. Thompson has been with Accenture since the back end of 2020, heading up Cyber Transformation, Advisory and Application Security for ANZ. Prior to joining, he spent a year and a half in CISO roles at the Victorian Department of Transport and VicRoads. Thompson earlier kicked off his career with a decade at the ATO.

Kelly Reynolds has meanwhile been recruited as a managing director in Accenture’s Talent & Organisation practice out of Perth, from which she will lead the offering across growth markets with a focus on the Asia Pacific, Middle East and Africa. An experienced executive, Reynolds brings more than two and half decades of human capital and cross-industry business consulting experience, most recently as managing partner of boutique Claritas & Partners.