Former Kloud sales leader jumps to AWS partner Nebulr

Kloud's Victorian state manager, Damian Coyne, has resigned from the Telstra-owned technology firm to take up the mantle as general manager of fast-growing Amazon Web Service partner Nebulr.

Coyne told CRN he was excited to venture into the AWS channel after a career that included internal employment at Microsoft then with one of its most celebrated partners.

"I have done a lot in the Microsoft ecosystem and worked for Microsoft. There is a whole new world and ecosystem supporting customers in this space and that is a big reason to go look at Nebulr," Coyne told CRN.

Nebulr was founded by Craig Howe and has worked for a series of major enterprise customers, including migrating one of the world's largest Magento instances to AWS for client Australian Pharmaceutical Industries.

As national GM, Coyne will "own everything from operations, sales, recruitment, and people and culture on a day-to-day basis".

Coyne said he had been attracted to Nebulr's "TCO-centric approach" and strategy of bridging the divide between the business and IT teams.

Nebular currently have around 18 staff, Coyne said, and "a bold plan to double that year-on-year for the next three years at a minimum".

Coyne departs Kloud after more than five years, having been part of its rapid growth and acquisition by Telstra.

He joined out of Microsoft in 2012 to become Kloud's New South Wales state business manager and presided over the growth of the NSW branch grew from five staff to 70 before becoming Victorian state manager in 2016.

"It's rare to find passion like I did at Kloud and I'll be forever grateful for taking that punt in 2012 to pack up the family and move to Sydney," Coyne wrote on LinkedIn.

Telstra acquired major Microsoft partners Kloud and Readify in 2016 and has maintained both brands as distinct entities.

However, Telstra has been integrating functions internally, and in September promoted Readify founder Graeme Strange to head of technology and strategy with a remit to "set the direction for technology services in Australia and globally".