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Advanced appoints Gavin Disney-May as Strategic Advisor

11/10/2016 minute read Gordon Wilson

Following an exciting, 12-month business transformation process, Advanced has appointed Gavin Disney-May as a strategic advisor to the business, further strengthening the company’s executive leadership team. He will advise on future business strategy including M&A activities.

A highly experienced corporate executive, entrepreneur, investor and strategic advisor, Gavin brings a wealth of strategic and sector-specific knowledge that will help Advanced to achieve ambitious and sustained growth.

Gavin Disney-May commented:“Having worked with some of the world’s most progressive and dynamic software organisations, I am looking forward to supporting Advanced through its next transformative phase. With a dynamic and highly skilled team already in place, it has a passion to deliver technology solutions, helping customers reimagine their own businesses in order to grow and prosper. In Advanced, I see great potential and I am excited to be playing a part in unlocking that.”

Starting his career by developing and building his own software business (PACS Ltd), it was successfully acquired by one of the world’s largest software organisations, Sage, in 1998. Gavin then played a significant part in the major growth phases that followed. During his 16 years at Sage, he saw revenues grow from £152m to £1.4bn, and held several senior executive positions, before becoming Group M&A Director.

While there, he was instrumental in developing the Sage UK Accounting Firm strategy, was CEO of their Enterprise Solutions business, acquired a number of businesses for the mid-market HCM and vertical strategy, launched SagePay and spearheaded Sage’s global strategy in Brazil.

Most recently, Gavin has been working with Vista as an Executive Partner in London, where he managed relationships with the banking and M&A communities.

Gordon Wilson, CEO, Advanced said:

“We are absolutely thrilled to welcome Gavin to Advanced and for him to be a part of the next phase in our journey which is focussed on significant growth. His unrivalled experience in the sector will help us to cement our success in the UK, as we look to realise our ambitious, long-term goals.”

Advanced is the third largest software and services provider to the UK market, which covers the public sector, the third sector as well as commercial markets.

Advanced is recognised as a British business success story having grown to a £750m company in just eight years. It was acquired by Vista Equity Partners in March 2015. Advanced employs 2,000 people and has a loyal customer base of more than 20,000 organisations including HMRC & DWP, Virgin Trains, Harvey Nichols, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Carewatch.