Former AWS exec named as CEO of cloud services startup

Former AWS APAC professional services director Paul O’Rourke has joined Australian cloud services start-up, Digital Renewal (DigiRen), as CEO.

Over his seven years at AWS, O’Rourke moved from leading professional services across Australia and New Zealand to the whole APAC region. Prior to AWS, he worked for Accenture in their technology consulting business.

In total, O’Rourke has over 25 years experience leading cloud transformation and consulting practices.

DigiRen was founded in 2019, targeting the market for cloud operating models from commercial enterprise and public sector organisations.

Founder and CTO George Watts describes O’Rourke’s appointment as “incredibly exciting.”

“He brings tremendous cloud leadership experience that only a few in Australia have. Coronavirus has accelerated cloud roadmaps for some companies and the availability of data, applications and reliable e-commerce platforms has fuelled the demand for cloud as the best place to get this critical work done."

The founding team at DigiRen includes talent from the ASX, PWC and AWS, as well as various foundational and strategic roles across other companies, including other start-ups.

DigiRen gained AWS Select Consulting Partner status at its inception, and the company expects the current team of 11 to grow rapidly.

“We’ve built an exceptional team of some of the most talented people in the market and are partnering with leading cloud providers such as AWS and this is just the beginning." O’Rourke says.  

“Commercial enterprise and public sector customers today are seeing increasing pressure to leverage cloud, whether that be to accelerate time to market for their products and services, improve their customer experience, increase their business agility or to reduce the cost and risk of legacy IT infrastructure.”

The DigiRen team has led cloud transformations on behalf of some of the largest Australian and global organisations including AWS, KPMG and IBM.