Meet our Leadership Team

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.

Andrew Henderson, CTO

Andrew brings twenty years of experience supporting start-up technology firms and global financial services firms, driving value and growth through innovative technology solutions. Andrew has worked with renowned brands such as JP Morgan Chase & Co in the USA, Westpac in New Zealand, and ING Bank, where he held the position of Global Chief Technology Officer

With a genuine passion for using technology to enhance work experiences, Andrew is dedicated to empowering organizations with cloud-based solutions. His transformative work at ING Bank earned him the title of Australian CIO of the Year in 2012.

His passion lies in delivering integrated cloud services that enables digital transformation and facilitates rapid scalability for our customers.

Narinder Sahota, CSO

Our Chief Services 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.

Roy Wood, CCO

Responsible for the commercial strategy across the business, bringing sales and marketing together as one integrated team. Roy’s role is to ensure the entire sales and marketing function is delivering a world-class experience to our customers. Roy was previously Advanced’s CSO and with this new role he will bring better alignment across our business units to deliver on the company’s ambitious growth plans.

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

Sally Scott, CMO & ESG

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.

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.

Stephen Dews, CFO

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.

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.

Anwen Robinson

SVP > Accelerator

Anwen Robinson is SVP, Accelerator, responsible for driving innovation and growth of Advanced’s SaaS solutions in high growth sectors.

Anwen has held senior leadership roles for large-scale business software organisations in the UK and Ireland. She’s also a passionate supporter of STEM skills, especially amongst women, and a longstanding member of the Prince’s Trust Technology Leadership Group.

Doug Hargrove

SVP > Legal, Professional Services, Distribution, Logistics, Manufacturing

Doug is our SVP for Legal and Professional Services, Distribution, Logistics and Manufacturing. Passionate about the customer, Doug is dedicated to creating industry-leading technology solutions that transform how these sectors serve their customers and to developing best-in-class services to support these solutions.

Prior to joining Advanced in 2013 through an acquisition, Doug served as the Managing Director of Iris Legal for three years. In October 2018, he expanded his portfolio of responsibilities by taking on the Education division, transforming the way Advanced delivers technology solutions to the Further Education and Independent Training Provider market.

With over 25 years of executive management experience in Retail, Hospitality, Petrol and Convenience software companies globally, Doug is a recognized industry voice on the impact of emerging technologies.

James Green

Managing Director > 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.

Mark Dewell

SVP > Education, Government and Social Housing

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 SVP, Education, Government and Social Housing 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.

Ric Thompson

SVP > Health and 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.

Tim Jones

Managing Director > Application Modernisation

Tim is Managing Director of Application Modernisation at Advanced, helping organisations to maximise their investment in critical legacy applications through transformation to modern operating environments, ensuring they remain competitive and ready to take advantage of new and emerging technologies.

With more than 30 years’ IT experience, Tim has a strong track record in business growth and developing high performing teams who are positioned to succeed. His experience covers a broad range of competencies, including general management, sales and marketing, solution delivery, P&L control and M&A. He is a specialist in Application Modernisation and in delivering transformative solutions to Enterprise and SME markets that span both private and public sectors.

As an individual, Tim is passionate about what he does and is highly focused on the success of his teams and his customers.