Riley joins the managed hybrid cloud services provider from the omni-channel retailer New Look, and brings extensive experience in DevOps, Azure, and AWS to his new role. At New Look, he oversaw the hybrid cloud strategy and design, as well as Azure adoption. 

“I’m really excited about the direction of travel for Brightsolid.” said Riley. “The company has made huge strides over the past 18 months by adding some very impressive talent and launching new products and services. I’m looking forward to adding my passion for all things cloud, especially the Microsoft stack, to Brightsolid as the business grows and expands.”

As the head of cloud solutions at Brightsolid, Riley is looking to lead the cloud architecture and customer success function, focusing on supporting customers in various aspects, such as cloud strategy, adoption, migration, and optimisation. A critical responsibility for Riley will also be the development of  Brightsolid’s new Azure offering, slated for an early 2024 launch.

“Nick is an outstanding cloud leader and evangelist and one of the UK’s most capable cloud experts. Customers are going to love his passion and expertise,” said Brightsolid CTO Andy Sinclair.

Recommended reading

• Gartner: Cloud to Become a Business Necessity by 2028
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• Gartner: Public Cloud Spending to Reach £554bn in 2024

Riley’s appointment coincides with Brightsolid’s reappointment to the Scottish Government Cloud Framework, one of the only two MSPs on the latest Framework. The company has been a constant presence in the sphere, working with various public sector organisations.

“We work with a huge range of public sector organisations through the Framework, and we’re looking forward to continuing to support them on every step of their cloud journey,” said Sinclair.

This is on the backdrop of the market for cloud infrastructure being worth £7 to 7.5 billion last year according to Ofcom, with AWS having a market share of about 80%. According to Statista, the revenue for the public cloud market is expected to show an annual growth rate of 9.89% between now and 2028.