Mike Small named North America leader at Akkodis
Mike Small, an experienced IT consulting executive, has been hired as North America leader of Akkodis, the soon-to-be combination of Europe-based IT consultancies Akka and Modis.
HR and recruitment giant Adecco Group in February completed a majority stake acquisition of Akka, a Brussels-headquartered engineering, research and development (ER&D) services firm. The 20,000-person consultancy helps manufacturers drive Industry 4.0 evolution with innovative technology in machine learning, robotics, big data, and IoT.
Adecco announced that it will merge Akka with Modis, its high-tech services business. Based in Zurich alongside its parent company, Modis has more than 30,000 consultants in 20+ countries providing services in digital transformation, cloud and infrastructure, smart ecosystem, and Industry 4.0.
The merged Akkodis entity will have 50,000 professionals delivering IT and engineering expertise across 30 countries in North America, EMEA, and Asia-Pacific.
Small, who is based in Miami, brings more than 22 years of IT sector experience to his role helming Akkodis’ North America operations. Small has particular depth of experience leading sales functions within large IT services firms.
He joins Akkodis from Sitel, a provider of customer experience (CX) products and solutions with 160,000 employees, where he spent three years as CEO of the Americas region. In the role, he oversaw all functional aspects of the Americas organization, including operations, finance, sales, HR, and project management. Before that, he spent over a year as the firm’s chief client officer, leading the Americas account management team.
Before Sitel, Small was chief revenue officer at CX firms VXI and Symbio and global sales officer of business process outsourcing (BPO) at Capgemini. Prior to that, he spent five years as director of BPO services, North America at Hewlett-Packard, overseeing sales strategy and operations with a focus on financial services offerings.
Earlier in his career, Small spent nine years at IBM, where he was latterly a director of sales and client services.
He holds an MBA from Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
I am confident that Mike's deep understanding of technology services paired with his dedication to developing top-performing teams will make him successful in his journey leading our North America footprint and advancing this new chapter under the Akkodis brand," said Jan Gupta, president of Akkodis, to whom Small will report.
“I am excited to join Akkodis at such a pivotal time,” Small said. “As brands reinvent and reimagine themselves for the hybrid future, there is an incredible opportunity to offer our clients and candidates new ways to scale innovation, improve productivity and accelerate their digital transformations.”
