IT and cloud services provider Advanced has appointed ex-Salesforce vice president Simon Short (pictured) as its chief operating officer to give its cloud activities a boost.
Short is the former executive vice president of global customer success at Salesforce, and will help bolster customer success around Advanced’s cloud solutions through “driving high levels of retention, customer growth and acquisition”, said Advanced.
Advanced said it has developed and acquired 19 cloud products within the last two years, “with more in the pipeline for 2021”. The appointment comes 18 months after a £2 billion investment deal Advanced struck with Vista Equity Partners and BC Partners. Prior to the five years he spent at Salesforce, Short was head of technology and business management at Vodafone, as well as CTO and head of digital for the customer experience business at Capgemini.
Gordon Wilson, Advanced CEO, said of the appointment: “We want to become the best cloud software and services provider and Simon is the person who will help us get there.
“He is one of the customer success heavyweights in the industry. His vast experience in customer success, working for the world’s first and largest software-as-a-service business [Salesforce], gives us the opportunity to not only learn best practice but align to our vision of delivering a service to our customers that others can only aspire to.”
Short added: “Advanced is a fast-growing cloud software company and has had remarkable success to date. I look forward to focusing on how to make a difference to its thousands of customers and grow the business through unrivalled customer success.”
