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Pythian acquires U.K.-based consulting firm in bid to boost Oracle bench strength

May 1, 2025

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Big-data analytics and cloud services provider Pythian has acquired U.K.-based Rittman Mead Consulting in a move to boost its Oracle expertise and expand its footprint on the other side of the Atlantic. Terms of the deal, which closed Wednesday morning, were not disclosed. As part of the agreement, Rittman Mead founder and CEO Jon Mead will join Pythian’s executive team as the Ottawa-based company’s managing director for Europe. The acquisition adds 45 new employees to Pythian’s current head count of about 370. Pythian CEO Brooks Borcherding said the move will help accelerate growth as Rittman Mead’s team of experts in Oracle business intelligence and analytics solutions joins forces with Pythian’s existing roster of Oracle gurus, who are more focused on the software giant’s database capabilities. Borcherding said Pythian, which has forged strategic partnerships with cloud computing hyperscalers such as Google and Amazon Web Services, can now bring even more expertise to the table when working with global tech heavyweights. “We suddenly become that much more attractive to Google as their go-to integration partner for the Oracle workloads that they’re trying to migrate into Google,” he explained in an interview with Techopia this week. “It gives us together a much broader portfolio in the Oracle estate. From a growth perspective, we think that’s going to be pretty compelling.” Founded in 2007 and headquartered in Brighton, England, Rittman Mead also gives Pythian a beachhead in Europe. While Pythian has had a “light presence” in the United Kingdom for years, Borcherding said the new acquisition will raise the firm’s profile in a market dominated by better-known competitors. “From a footprint perspective, it does give us some nice geographic expansion as well,” he said. “I see this as a win all the way around.” It’s the first acquisition for Pythian under Borcherding’s watch. The 35-year tech industry veteran joined the company almost a year ago after working with several heavy hitters in the cloud computing sector. Borcherding came to Pythian from French IT consulting giant Atos, where he led the firm’s Amazon Web Services practice. Before that, he was CEO of London-based cloud services provider Cloudreach, which was acquired by Atos in 2022. Borcherding, who lives in the New York City area, wasted no time making his presence felt at his new employer. Pythian has made several moves to beef up its leadership team since he came on board, such as hiring former Shopify executive Shawn Gandhi as senior vice-president of customer engineering and managing director for Canada in what Borcherding calls a bid to “re-establish” the company’s prominence in its home country. The firm has also strengthened its ties with strategic partners such as Google, leaning on the tech giant’s expertise in the field of generative AI by offering Google’s Gemini assistant to customers as an alternative to ChatGPT and helping clients figure out how to get more out of AI tools that are already embedded in their existing software subscriptions. Pythian has also put more of an impetus on creating “bespoke” AI solutions for customers such as logistics firm Day & Ross, which is now using tools developed by Pythian to help automate the laborious process of filling out bills of lading and other shipping documents. Pythian’s AI services, which accounted for only a “nominal” percentage of the firm’s revenues a year ago, now make up a “fairly significant portion” of the company’s business, Borcherding said. He expects the acquisition of Rittman Mead to further add to Pythian’s AI revenues. “I think we’ve hit on a few key growth strategies that are really paying off,” he said. “I’m having the most fun that I've ever had.” Founded in 1997, Pythian is headquartered in Ottawa and has offices in New York, Minneapolis, the United Kingdom, Australia and India. In addition to providing IT support and management to customers on platforms such as Google Cloud, Amazon Web Services, Oracle and Microsoft Azure, the company also uses big-data analytics to help food retailers and other clients with tasks such as managing their supply chains.