Revealed: former SMS chief Tom Stianos' new company

Tom Stianos, the former chief executive of SMS Management and Technology, has launched a new venture with two other ex-SMS staffers.

South Australia-based digital and business advisory firm Escient was launched Thursday night, with Stianos (pictured, left) and co-founders Stephen Mabbs (centre) and Tin Tran (right) hosting a launch function for potential clients in downtown Adelaide.

Mabbs has started successful consultancies in the past. He founded Permian in 1994, which was eventually acquired by SMSMT in 2007. He ended up as government national industry director at SMSMT, before departing last September.

Mabbs, who is chief executive of the new venture, said that Escient would only focus on one client per vertical at any given time. "We have started with a clean sheet and applied lessons learned and ideas from our collective years of experience to design what we believe is a next-generation consulting company."

"Rather than just being reactionary to client demand for services, we will work proactively on ways to help their businesses improve," he added.

"We also prefer skin in the game because if our client doesn’t succeed, then neither should we."

Stianos, who takes the role of chairman at Escient, was chief executive of SMSMT for 13 years before stepping down in January 2015. In November, he was appointed to the board of Sydney telco Inabox as non-executive director.

Escient business innovation director Tran worked at SMSMT for five years, ending up as government and finance account director upon his departure last September. He has also had stints at Telstra, Kaz and Hewlett Packard.

Escient plans to expand to Victoria, NSW and Queensland "in the near future", announced the firm.