Meet our Leadership Team

Simon Walsh, CEO

An experienced technology leader, Simon joined Advanced in April 2023. With a successful track record in scaling technology businesses and driving technological transformation, he is leading Advanced towards further growth through innovation, as it expands its solution offerings and market traction.

Prior to joining Advanced, Simon was CEO of NTT Americas, a global technology and business solutions provider, and before that held CEO and COO positions for leading technology brands such as Atos, Virtustream and Dell Technologies Global Cloud Business.

Simon is passionate about Advanced’s mission and its people, with a keen understanding of how technology can transform people’s working lives for the better using innovative Cloud-based solutions. He is driving the business with a clear vision, which is to be the positive difference for its customers, by providing quality products and services with outstanding customer service.

Katie Obi, CPO

Katie brings over twenty years of experience in transforming and aligning people and business strategies within technology businesses. She has a strong track record of delivering value throughout the employee lifecycle, ensuring investment in skills, learning, and development are at the heart of an organisation's approach.

Previously, Katie held the role of Chief People Officer at tech start-up Beamery, and before that, she was the Chief People and Transformation Officer at Rizing, a leading SAP consulting firm.

At OneAdvanced, Katie's focus is on building innovative, forward-thinking people strategies that support OneAdvanced’s ambitious growth plans. These strategies aim to foster an environment where everyone can unleash their full potential.

Stephen Dews, CFO

Stephen Dew, our Chief Financial Officer, is responsible for leading the groups strategic and operational finance initiatives.

Stephen Dews, our Chief Financial Officer, is responsible for leading the groups strategic and operational finance initiatives. Stephen has many years’ experience leading Finance teams in both publicly listed and Private Equity backed businesses in the IT and technical services sectors. In the software space Stephen has previously held the positions of EMEA Finance Director for Oracle, Group Financial Controller for UNIT4 and more recently Chief Financial Officer for Keylane, provider of a market leading SaaS platform for the Insurance and Pension industry in the Benelux, Dach and Nordics.

Narinder Sahota, CTO

Our Chief Technology Officer, Narinder Sahota, has more than 28 years’ technology experience. He is responsible for managing our growing R&D facility and driving its technology strategy forward, bringing innovative products and services to market and creating value for our 25,000 customers.

He joined us from Salesforce where he held various CTO positions and, more recently, was the European lead for its business transformation consulting practice. Prior to that, he spent over 22 years at Capgemini. He was the Account CTO for the one of the company’s biggest digital accounts, Royal Mail Group, as well as Chief Architect at one of the world’s largest outsourcing deals, where he drove technology strategy and governance of a 160-strong architecture unit.

Amanda Grant, CPO

Amanda came to Advanced in 2018 via an acquisition. She was quickly promoted to Chief Product Officer in 2019, following a successful time as Product Strategy Director, where she was responsible for our product roadmap in all markets and ensuring the correct strategic investment for achieving growth.

With over two decades of IT industry experience, Amanda brings a wealth of knowledge around ERP solutions to the role. She has a strong background in product strategy, pre-sales and training. Amanda works closely with our UK and India Engineering Leadership to drive forward the direction of our technology platform and optimise our innovative R&D facility so we can drive value in every part of our customers’ organisations.

Sally Scott, CMO

Sally Scott was promoted to the role of Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) at Advanced in December 2015. She had previously been Marketing Director of our Business Solutions division, delivering a breadth of back-office and specialist CRM solutions to the mid and enterprise market. Sally is now responsible for aligning the company’s marketing initiatives and evolving brand awareness to our ambitious growth plans.

Sally is passionate that marketing makes a measurable revenue contribution, and is focused on ensuring that marketing and sales work hand-in-hand. She brings over 15 years of senior marketing experience to Advanced, and is a recognised industry commentator on marketing and boardroom issues.

Roy Wood, CSO

Responsible for sales execution and strategy, Roy is our Chief Sales Officer (CSO). Roy divides his time integrating new acquisitions and ensuring the Sales team deliver a world-class experience to our customers. Promoted into the role in February 2018, Roy has led the largest transformational change of this function in Advanced’s history. This has resulted in the Sales team being better aligned with product and marketing to deliver on the company's’ ambitious growth plans.

Roy was one of the co-founders of the Managed Service business in 2005 and has been key to our growth, carrying out various senior leadership roles across sales, marketing and product including MD for the IT Services division.

Yasmin Mangalji

General Counsel

Yasmin Mangalji, our General Counsel, joined us in September 2021 with over 15 years of cross-border experience advising high-growth businesses. She is responsible for leading our Commercial & Legal team, supporting our M&A strategy and advising across all areas of the business, while maintaining a sharp focus on enhancing shareholder value and supporting growth.

Yasmin started her career as a technology lawyer working for international law firms. She joined us from SS&C Intralinks where she was Head of Legal and prior to that she held senior roles in a number of public and private-equity backed technology companies. Yasmin is experienced at, and passionate about, building diverse, high-performing and customer-focused global teams.

Mark Dewell

Public, Private & Third Sector

Mark quickly progressed to leadership roles in the UK and Australia after he joined his first software company. He moved to Iris Software in 2008, taking up the role of Managing Director of the Ticketing business, and joined Advanced in 2013 when Iris divested that part of its portfolio.

Since that time Mark has held senior leadership roles, acquiring an extensive level of strategic expertise and driving growth for both customers and the business. As Managing Director of the Public, Private and Third Sector division he leads a team that delivers connected technology and digital transformation to organisations, helping them revolutionise the way they deliver services and achieve operational efficiencies.

Doug Hargrove

Education & Legal

Doug is the Managing Director for Education and Legal, based in our Knutsford office. He is focused on creating industry-leading technology solutions that transform the way these industries serve their customers, and in creating best-in-class services to support these solutions.

Prior to joining Advanced in 2013 via acquisition, Doug was Managing Director of Iris Legal for three years. In October 2018 he added the Education division to his portfolio of responsibilities, with an additional annual £20m turnover.

Doug has over 20 years’ executive management experience in software companies all over the world, and is a well-known industry contributor on the impact of emerging technologies.

Ric Thompson

Health & Care

Ric joined Advanced in July 2018, following our acquisition of Docman, as part of plans to further accelerate our Cloud-first strategy. Ric is an experienced technology business leader, with over 19 years of board-level expertise in delivering innovative solutions to the UK public sector - including the NHS, Local Government and Education.

The latter part of Ric’s career has been working exclusively with the NHS where, through his entrepreneurial approach to business, he successfully positioned Docman as the market-leader within its field. Ric is passionate about how software can help transform the NHS and enable integration with the care sector. He is a regular commentator on these issues.

James Green

IT Services

James Green is Managing Director of IT Services at Advanced. He has 20 years’ experience in the IT industry, and is passionate about the use of technology to enable growth in business and to catalyse change. James and his team partner with organisations who are looking to maximise their IT investment and transform existing applications.

Previously CTO for ten years at Alternative Networks, James specialised in the creation and delivery of go-to-market strategy. He was responsible for architecting and implementing the technology plan to migrate from traditional technology platforms to Cloud-enabled and emerging digital technology. James is a proponent of utilising and protecting data in order to maximise business success.