AWS platform Stax hires new executives and plans to expand into New Zealand and South East Asia
The only native AWS cloud management platform, Stax, has announced plans for international expansion, with sights set on expanding into New Zealand and South East Asia by Q1 2022.
Over the past year, the Australian company has increased its year-on-year revenue by 175% and doubled its headcount to more than 60 employees. Stax has also raised AU$23.6 million in private funding and invested AU$37 million in research and development throughout FY21, demonstrating strong growth throughout the pandemic as businesses rushed to the cloud.
The company began as a product division at the Amazon Web Services (AWS) partner Versent, under James Coxon and Thor Essman's direction. It now operates as a standalone entity, and the platform takes care of the fundamental foundations required to operate on AWS.
To support the next growth phase, Stax has hired three new executives to drive sales, operations and marketing, and appointed Thor Essman as managing director.
Davinia Simon has joined the company to take up the role of head of sales and growth markets. As the former head of channel and alliances for Australia and New Zealand at AWS, Simon will develop the Stax go to market strategy and partner program.
In addition, Amanda Iwasaki has been appointed from Versent as head of operations, while Prayna Prasad joins from Fujitsu and Macquarie Data Centers as head of marketing.
Thor Essman will support the company full-time as its co-founder and newly appointed managing director. While Essman remains chairman of the board of directors at Versent, he will work closely with Stax co-founder and chief product officer James Coxon to build the Stax brand and attract further funding and talent to help the business scale.
"Our philosophy is to constantly challenge the IT industry to bring greater discipline, automation, craftsmanship and delivery excellence to enterprise technology," says Essman.
"The Stax platform is a dynamic symbol of this, helping our customers drive cloud outcomes with more impact, lower risk, and lower cost. I'm thrilled to welcome Davinia, Amanda and Prayna to the team to help us further this vision.
"Davinia understands AWS customers and partners better than anyone. She knows the pain points they can experience when deploying cloud infrastructure, and the innovation that can be achieved when the foundation is built right."
He says he looks forward to expanding Stax to new channels and markets under her leadership.
Simon says she's delighted to join Stax and hopes to accelerate Stax culture for innovation.
"I fundamentally believe in the crucial and unique role Stax plays in helping customers attain the most from their AWS environments," she says.
"Stax is a sophisticated and effortless solution to an inherently complex global problem. Based on all the current success metrics, Stax undoubtedly has a global trajectory ahead of it, and I'm excited to be a part of the team to take this business to the next stage."
