Cardiff-based tech firm announces rebrand, new board and acquisition

High-performance IT consultancy DevOpsGuys has rebranded to DevOpsGroup to reflect the growing diversity of its team.

The Cardiff-based tech firm – which specialises in DevOps and cloud engineering, consultancy and training – has made the move after raising £3 million of funding from the Business Growth Fund.

It has used the money to launch an ambitious recruitment drive, appoint a new board and complete an acquisition as part of growth plans.

Founded in 2013 by James Smith and Steve Thair, DevOpsGroup has quickly grown to a team of 70 specialists based across the UK and works with businesses such as ASOS, Admiral, BAE Systems and Vodafone.

Changing times

James admits that the company has changed dramatically over the past five years, and the name change is representative of this.

“When Steve Thair and I started this company in 2013, we were two technologists from Development and Operations, with a belief that we could make a real difference to the way companies delivered IT services by putting people, process, and technology at the heart of digital transformation,” he said.

“Now with over 70 people, we want our brand to truly reflect our passion to be an inclusive company and embody our bold desire to scale.

“Our new name is reflective of who we are today, but one thing remains unchanged which is our passion for enabling IT transformation at the speed of disruption.”

New board

To strengthen its position as a fast-growing business and utilise more expertise, DevOpsGroup has appointed Adam Hale as its chairman. He has almost 30 years of experience working in the technology sector.

Meanwhile, the rest of the board consists of Silicon Valley-based Coco Brown, CEO of diversity organisation The Athena Alliance; Paul Heywood, vice president of worldwide sales and business strategy at Oracle; and James Henderson, who is serving as chief financial officer.

Adam Hale, chairman of DevOpsGroup, said: “I see this as the end of the beginning for DevOpsGroup. It has been a great five years and we are now setting it up for the path to global leadership.

“Certainly, getting external investment is part of that. But it is also about building on the partnerships it already has in place with organisations such as Amazon Web Services (AWS) and Microsoft and to continue to develop its talent.

“DevOpsGroup has a unique ability to help organisations such as Admiral Insurance achieve their digital transformation agenda and to help digital companies such as Skyscanner become truly Global leaders.”

Closing the tech skills gap

DevOpsGroup has also completed the acquisition of AgileSnap, a British Computer Society (BCS)-accredited training organisation that specialises in agile delivery methods and practices.

DOG Academy head James Harvey, who founded AgileSnap, added: “We’re absolutely thrilled to become part of the DevOpsGroup. Agile Snap and DevOpsGroup have always had extremely aligned core values and after working in partnership for over 18 months, this was a natural progression.

“We are committed to providing the very best learning opportunities to develop excellent IT talent and we’re incredibly excited to be a part of evolving this vision as part of the DevOpsGroup Academy.”