Avanade Appoints Industry Heavyweight Mark Livingston to Accelerate Growth of Global Advisory Services Practice

SEATTLE, April 10, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- Avanade has reinforced its position as a disruptor in the consulting market by appointing recognized growth architect Mark Livingston to lead its advisory practice globally. Livingston will spearhead an ambitious expansion strategy for Avanade Advisory Services together with a highly credentialed leadership team who have joined Avanade to scale a practice that helps clients develop and execute on digital and technology strategies.  The practice will specialize in an innovation-led approach to helping our clients transform to digital through next-generation capabilities and offerings for the AI-inspired world.

During his 30+ year consulting career, Livingston has formed a reputation for establishing and accelerating the growth of advisory practices.  Most recently, Livingston built Cognizant's advisory practice to a global team of 6,500 consultants in eight years.  Prior to that, Livingston spent 13 years at A.T. Kearney as CEO of Latin America and as managing partner in its Global Strategic Technology and Business Transformation Practice.  Livingston has also been a partner at Grant Thornton LLP and served as a director at Deloitte.

"We hand-selected Mark to join Avanade with the goal of further differentiating and growing our Advisory practice globally," said Adam Warby, CEO, Avanade.  "Digital transformation is hard and organizations need help to ready for the AI-inspired world. As an agile, design-led practice, Avanade Advisory Services is ideally positioned to help clients with a bold new approach.  Mark has the rare experience required to rapidly scale the business and optimize the digital and technology capabilities we bring to market."

Livingston's appointment is another hiring coup for leading digital innovator Avanade following the recent appointments of Rob Asen as North America Advisory Lead and Dionne De Jong as Europe Advisory Lead.

"What excites me most about joining Avanade is building a next-generation advisory practice," Livingston said. "Our practitioners are highly entrepreneurial thinkers and experts at strategy co-creation, but we are also able to draw on the strength of Avanade's 30,000+ technology professionals in the Microsoft ecosystem to help our clients turn strategy into practical execution.  Along with being nimble and building intimate client relationships, driving real business impact is where our sweet spot in the market will be." 

Mark holds a degree in economics from Mississippi State University and an MBA from the University of Missouri - Columbia.  Prior to his career in management consulting, Mark was a nuclear missile officer in the United States Air Force.

About Avanade
Avanade is the leading provider of innovative digital and cloud services, business solutions and design-led experiences delivered through the power of people and the Microsoft ecosystem. Our professionals bring bold, fresh thinking combined with technology, business and industry expertise to help fuel transformation and growth for our clients and their customers. Avanade has 30,000 digitally connected people across 23 countries, bringing clients the best thinking through a collaborative culture that honors diversity and reflects the communities in which we operate. Majority owned by Accenture, Avanade was founded in 2000 by Accenture LLP and Microsoft Corporation. Learn more at https://www.avanade.com.                                 

MEDIA CONTACTS:
Avanade:
Jennifer Grimes Douglas
jennifer.c.grimes@avanade.com

Golin on behalf of Avanade:
Michelle Weisz
mweisz@golin.com

SOURCE Avanade