Manchester-based CTS Group has announced the appointment of Tom Ray as CEO, who will now lead the group’s two partner companies, CTS and CloudM. This follows the decision by incumbent CEO James Doggart to step into a Founder Director role following nearly 10 years at the helm of the two companies.

Tom’s appointment comes after a record-breaking year for both businesses, with Google Cloud Platform revenue figures up 79% for CTS and 86% accelerating growth for CloudM’s SaaS platform this past financial year. Having helped grow CTS in his role as Managing Director, the move to Group CEO will enable him to support more growth at CloudM, the group’s SaaS data management platform.

CTS’ services arm is Europe’s largest dedicated Google Cloud partner, and was recently named by Google as EMEA Workspace Enterprise partner of the year and EMEA Public Sector partner of the year for GCP as they propel organisations such as Travis Perkins and Cabinet Office on their cloud journeys. The group’s software brand, CloudM, is a SaaS data management platform thatenables organisations of all sizes to get the most out of Microsoft 365, Google Workspace and other SaaS apps. Recently named as Computings’ Cloud Management Solution of the year, they currently support customers including Spotify, Netflix, and Uber.

As part of the restructure, current CTS Chief Operating Officer Chris Bunch will become Managing Director of CTS, while Gary Bennion will retain his position as Managing Director of CloudM. As a founder, CTS Group’s current CEO James Doggart is now stepping into an advisory role, to support the group on its continued growth trajectory.

Speaking of his appointment, Tom said:

“I originally joined CTS as Managing Director to drive growth specifically in key markets including retail, financial services and public sector, working closely with James. It’s thanks to James’ dedication and expertise that the company is where it is today, and I’m delighted to be able to continue to drive the business forward as he moves into a founding director role.

“I’m really excited to start working closely with Gary at CloudM to help that side of the business to move into the next phase of growth. The opportunities for CloudM are still in relative infancy, but I strongly believe the business has the ability to become a true market leader in terms of technical innovation, being a ‘go to’ place to work and market share.

“I’ve worked with Chris for a number of years, scaling similar organisations. His focus on excellence in delivery, thought leadership and Google know-how are second to none and is at the heart of what makes our customer relationships so strong. I can’t wait to see what he has planned for the next stage of CTS’ growth journey.”

In his previous role as MD at CTS, Tom took the company through a growth phase that has helped to cement its position as theGoogle Cloud experts. The introduction of their Think Big partnership with Google Cloud has already led to multi-year engagements with JPI Media whilst their Sustainability Heros initiative is already being used by customers to help them to become greener using Google’s carbon neutral cloud.