Cevo adds Allison Howells and Sean Hooper to leadership team
Quadrant-backed cloud consultancy Cevo has recruited Allison Howells and Sean Hooper to head up its data & AI and modernisation practices.
Australian AWS partner Cevo has brought in two big league advisors to bolster its senior leadership team, with Allison Howells crossing from management consultancy Slalom to take up a newly created data and AI lead role and Sean Hooper recruited from Accenture as head of modernisation.
The appointments follow the mid-year recruitment of Stefan Buchman from Slalom as the Quadrant-backed firm’s first chief technology officer.
Allison Howells brings close to two decades worth of data & analytics, product development, and business intelligence experience to her new role, having spent the past fifteen months at global management consultancy Slalom.
Prior to that, she led the data capability for Capgemini Invent creative consultancy frog, and has also spent time in senior roles at Ernst & Young, Suncorp, Experian, and IAG, the latter for seven years including a stint in Singapore.
Howells, who will be based out of Melbourne, said she was excited to take on her new role; “My goal is to drive innovative data and artificial intelligence initiatives that deliver exceptional value to our customers. Cevo’s commitment to enabling businesses to move faster with confidence aligns perfectly with my vision, and I look forward to leading a talented team in achieving outstanding results and ensuring high customer satisfaction.”
Also based out of Melbourne, Sean Hooper crosses from a similar role at Accenture as Cevo’s new modernisation practice lead. He brings a further four years of direct experience at AWS, prior to which he spent the best part of a decade at Oracle and six years as a managing principal consultant at BEA Systems.
Altogether, Hooper has amassed more than three decades of IT experience, having completed his computer science degree with Monash in 1991.
Commenting on the appointments, CEO James Lewis stated: “Allison’s extensive experience across data & analytics, combined with her strong leadership skills, make her perfectly suited to drive our Data and AI practice and develop effective capabilities and offerings. Similarly, Sean’s expertise in leading modernisation initiatives across large, complex initiatives make him ideal to bolster our modernisation practice during its new phase of growth.”
Alongside fellow cloud specialists Arinco and D6 Consulting, Cevo received backing from private equity firm Quadrant toward the end of last year (following Quadrant’s $290 million sale of ARQ to NCS), with the trio of consultancies sitting under a Connetico umbrella led by former IBM Consulting partner and one-time Boston Consulting Group senior advisor Michelle Bendschneider.Already an AFR Fast 100 listee, Cevo has since been pursuing accelerated growth.
As part of its growth agenda, Cevo recently brought in former Slalom senior director Stefan Buchman as its first CTO – marking yet another Kloud Solutions reunion. Buchman previously served as infrastructure practice lead at Kloud prior to its $40 million sale to Telstra in 2016 (under Bendschneider). Among other Cevo leaders, Lewis was previously head of Kloud, while co-founder Nicki Bowers continues as a Connetico director.
