Ottawa-based big-data analytics and cloud services provider Pythian has hired longtime tech leader Brooks Borcherding as its new chief executive, the company said Tuesday.
The 35-year tech industry veteran most recently served as the global head of French IT consulting giant Atos’s Amazon Web Services practice. He previously led London-based cloud services provider Cloudreach before the company was acquired by Atos in 2022.
“I am excited to take Pythian to the next level of growth and success as CEO,” Borcherding said in a statement, adding the Ottawa company has a “strong history” of support and management for customers on platforms such as Google Cloud.
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“We also have extensive data, analytics, cloud, and AI expertise that enables us to deliver transformative business value for our customers,” he added. “Leveraging these strengths, we aim to further enhance our relevance to Google, our clients, and the industry. I look forward to collaborating with Pythian’s talented team to support our customers on their data transformation journey.”
Borcherding’s LinkedIn profile lists his home as Greenwich, Conn. A news release issued Tuesday morning did not say if he will remain based in the United States, and Pythian did not immediately respond to messages on Tuesday.
Borcherding replaces Keith Angell, who held the top job at Pythian for four years following previous CEO Paul Vallée’s departure from the company in 2019.
Angell was an operating partner at New York-based private equity firm Mill Point Capital, which acquired Pythian nearly five years ago, and served on the Ottawa firm’s board of directors before becoming its CEO. Angell plans to resume his role at Mill Point Capital and remain on Pythian’s board.
His successor brings an impressive resume to his new job.
Since graduating from Virginia Tech with a bachelor of science degree in industrial engineering in 1988, Borcherding has held senior leadership positions in North America and Europe with firms such as cloud communications giant Avaya, Cisco Systems and Time Warner Cable.
He also has plenty of experience calling the shots for major cloud and managed service providers. In addition to his two-year stint as head of Cloudreach, Borcherding was CEO of Boston-based IT firm Navisite from 2009-13 and later helmed network management software provider LiveAction.
Three of Borcherding’s former employers were sold to bigger companies while he was in the C-suite. Besides Cloudreach’s sale to Atos during Borcherding’s tenure as CEO, he was also leading Navisite when it was acquired by Time Warner Cable for US$230 million in 2011 and was chief revenue officer of software firm Datto when it was bought by Vista Equity Partners in 2017.
That experience navigating the M&A world could come in handy at Pythian, which has made a pair of acquisitions since it was sold to Mill Point Capital in 2019.
The most recent deal came three years ago, when Pythian acquired ManageServe, a Chicago-area company that helps customers use software from suppliers such as SAP to manage various aspects of their business, from finance and HR to distribution and supply chains.
Pythian’s secure data-transfer and cloud management business has expanded significantly since then.
Two years ago, company officials told Techopia Pythian’s overall revenues jumped 20 per cent in 2021 compared with the previous year, while its headcount rose from 400 to about 450 as it added 100 new logos to its client roster.
Angell said Pythian had moved “up-market” as larger enterprises encountered more and more problems managing data. He said he would continue to scour the market for additional opportunities to acquire companies that could add to Pythian’s sphere of expertise.
Founded in 1997, Pythian is headquartered in Ottawa and has offices in New York, Minneapolis, London, 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, Pythian also uses big-data analytics to help food retailers and other clients with tasks such as managing their supply chains.
The company says it has more than 400 customers around the world.
