Stephen Parker departs Rhipe, launches consultancy

Stephen Parker, the former head of cloud strategy for Rhipe, has launched an independent cloud and financial consulting business, 1 Vision OT. 

Through 1 Vision OT, Parker will offer his services to senior business leaders to consult on cloud adoption and strategy around financial governance.

Parker joined Rhipe in 2010 as head of cloud strategy, a position he held for five years. He was most recently appointed as vice president of market research in March before departing in September. 

He told CRN he would continue to work closely with the cloud distributor, which is an "anchor client" of 1 Vision OT, with a pipeline of projects to be revealed next year. 

“I discussed this with [Rhipe chief executive] Dominic O’Hanlon over a period of months and we both saw the opportunity for me to reach out into the wider market,” Parker told CRN.

Parker will join cloud providers and end-users in a non-executive director or keynote speaker role to work with and offer advise from his 30 years of experience in the IT industry.

“This is for businesses that need someone within senior management, someone the owner of the business can bounce ideas off and work with on plans,” said Parker. 

“The key is to provide support not in a traditional consulting way. I am a consumption-based consultant. 

“There are a lot of businesses that have started their cloud journey through a change consultant just for them to charge thousands of dollars just to write a report. For a lot of partners, it’s not technical skills or desire holding them back, it’s the wall of difficulty and they have to run a business at the same time.” 

1 Vision OT will laos provide strategy around attracting investors through financial consulting. Parker said small-to-medium businesses are deterring investment through improper governance and financial transparency.  

“There are also a lot of companies in the financing space keen to invest in the IT industry but fear the risk of investing,” said Parker.  

“They can’t invest if there’s no record of profit and loss, no record of key contracts, so it’s about going through the journey with them to provide more visibility and proper documentation.” 

Rhipe chief marketing officer Athena Thompson said Parker would continue working with Rhipe as a marketing consultant and key contributor while building a roster of different clients that focus on cloud.

“Stephen had a couple of professional goals, and we worked with him to figure out what they were and how he could continue to work with Rhipe,” said Thompson.

“We’re really happy that he’s so thrilled, and we’re pleased we get to continue working with him through his leadership.”