New Advanced COO Short joins from Salesforce, where he served as executive vice-president of global customer success, as the organisation looks to build on existing cloud products and acquire new products.
Prior to his five-year tenure at Salesforce, Short held the role of head of technology and business management at Vodafone, as well as CTO and head of digital for the customer experience business at Capgemini.
In addition, the new appointment served as an officer in the Royal Navy for 15 years, supporting major defence and technology programmes.
Short is Advanced’s second major appointment in eight months, following the arrival of former Shadow Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, Chuka Umunna, as a non-executive director in June 2020.
The appointment also comes 18 months after a £2 billion investment deal with Vista Equity Partners and BC Partners.
Agility for business — championing customer expectations in 2021
“Advanced is a fast-growing cloud software company and I am thrilled to be joining at this point in its journey,” said new Advanced COO Short.
“The company has had remarkable success to date, and I look forward to focusing on how to make a difference to its thousands of customers and grow the business through unrivalled customer success.”
Gordon Wilson, CEO of Advanced, commented: “We want to become the best cloud software and services provider, and Simon is the person who will help us get there.
“He is one of the customer success heavyweights in the industry. His vast experience in customer success, working for the world’s first and largest software-as-a-service business, gives us the opportunity to not only learn best practice, but align to our vision of delivering a service to our customers that others can only aspire to.”
