New Zealand consultancies appoint new Australian heads

Professional services firm Beca has appointed Robyn Kierse to head up its Australian advisory arm, while fellow Kiwi-born consultancy Practiv has tapped Jordan Greig for its local market launch.

Two New Zealand-headquartered consulting firms have appointed new leaders to oversee their businesses in Australia: former Versent general manager Jordan Greig in the local launch of Kiwi cloud and data consultancy Practiv, and Robyn Kierse, who takes over the Australian advisory arm of professional services firm Beca after crossing from DXC Technology.

Kierse joins Beca in Canberra after serving for the past year as DCX Technology’s national defence industry leader, before which she was national security strategy engagement partner at Kyndrl.

Earlier in her career, Kierse held a number of training and operations leadership roles within the APS, most notably with the Department of Home Affairs and Australian Border Force. She also spent time at professional services provider Downer.

With a focus on assets and infrastructure, Beca’s advisory division includes its management consulting, planning, project strategy and delivery, and sustainability practice areas. Its new Australia general manager was welcomed by advisory group leader Amelia Linzey, who was recently named as the 1920-founded company’s first ever female CEO and is due to take over in October – overseeing a business with 4,000 employees across two dozen APAC offices.

Meanwhile, Versent’s former Northern Region general manager Jordan Greig has been tapped by Auckland-based data and cloud consultancy Practiv to lead its push into the Australian market. Founded in 2000 and with AWS, Snowflake, Databricks and Google Cloud among its partners, Practiv today has a headcount of around 50 consultants. Describing itself as remote-first, local staff will be able to collaborate in studios in Melbourne and Sydney.

Greig will be based out of the latter city, crossing to the firm after leading Versent’s business in New South Wales, Queensland and New Zealand over the past year. Prior to that, he spent five years between Servian and Google Cloud in professional services leadership roles after having sold his own consulting business Cloud House to Bulletproof in 2016. His former employer – Versent – has also recently been put up for sale.

Speaking to Reseller News, Grieg touted Practiv’s multi-vendor relations as a fix to a local advisory system left “broken because of its own arrogance”. He states; “Most consultancies use a one-size-fits-all approach that focuses on maximising margins wherever possible. My goal is to build a data and cloud consultancy that is agnostic and genuinely delivers the best business outcomes for our customers without a bias or lock-in to a specific vendor or tech.”