CirrusHQ names Gary Beddow Head of Business Development

CirrusHQ has appointed Gary Beddow as Head of Business Development, expanding the Scottish cloud consultancy’s sales team.

Beddow joins from Digital Space, where he held a similar role for several years. He will report to Chief Revenue Officer Stephen Croke and arrives shortly after the company appointed Matt Smith as Head of Sales.

The new position adds senior weight to CirrusHQ’s commercial team as it looks to deepen its work with public sector customers. Beddow brings experience in cloud services, the public sector and the wider Amazon Web Services market.

CirrusHQ focuses on AWS consulting and holds Premier Tier Services Partner status with the cloud provider. Its work includes security, compliance and cloud management for organisations using AWS.

Public Sector Focus

CirrusHQ’s leadership linked the hire to demand from government bodies and other public service organisations for cloud-based systems. That demand is also being driven by growing interest in artificial intelligence tools and the data infrastructure needed to support them.

James Lucas, Chief Executive Officer of CirrusHQ, said: “Cloud First strategies are now the norm across the public sector, with many local authorities and central governmental departments fully recognising the power and scale that the technology can provide. Not only this, but as we see increased AI adoption in the sector, the cloud is primed to provide the solid data foundation that AI needs to thrive. From our experience working with councils and other public sector organisations across the UK, we know that they want to drill down further into the benefits of the cloud. Gary’s strong track record and dual cloud and public sector experience will allow him to fully support our customers on their ongoing cloud journeys.”

The focus on the public sector reflects a broader market shift as councils, central government departments and healthcare bodies modernise systems while under pressure to improve efficiency and resilience. Many are also managing ageing infrastructure and rising expectations around digital services.

Beddow said his new role would focus on helping those organisations tackle a broad range of operational and technology challenges. His remit includes first-time cloud migration, management of existing cloud estates and work involving newer artificial intelligence tools.

“I’m really excited to join such a capable AWS Cloud specialist and contribute to further success. The public sector, including local and central government as well as healthcare, are having to change and evolve in many ways to support their citizens and patients. Senior leaders are being continually asked to deliver improved efficiencies, provide more resilient and secure systems whilst also exploring and adopting new technologies. It can be a real challenge for an organisation to meet all these objectives on their own and this is where CirrusHQ can assist. Whether it’s about migrating to the cloud for the first time to escape aging infrastructure and technological debt or help with managing and securing an existing cloud environment or exploring and delivering innovative new solutions with the latest Gen AI tool sets. In my humble opinion and experience to date, there are only a handful of AWS cloud partners that really understand the public sector and can reliably deliver. CirrusHQ is one of those organisations,” Beddow said.

Sales Expansion

The creation of the Head of Business Development role points to a broader expansion of the company’s sales operation rather than a direct replacement. With Smith as Head of Sales and Beddow leading business development, CirrusHQ appears to be separating sales leadership from market development as it pursues further growth.

For AWS-focused cloud consultancies, public sector demand has become an important competitive area. Buyers are looking for support not only with migration projects but also with governance, security and cost control after systems move to the cloud.

Beddow’s background at Digital Space may also prove relevant as customers increasingly seek advisers who understand both the technical and procurement realities of public bodies. That experience has become more valuable as departments expand their use of cloud services beyond basic infrastructure projects.

CirrusHQ said Beddow’s experience across cloud and public sector work would help customers as they continue to develop their cloud strategies.