Avanade Launches Aggressive Three-Year Growth Plan; Announces New Executive Appointments

SEATTLE, WA--(Marketwire - October 14, 2008) - Avanade Inc., a global IT consultancy, announced the appointment of new key executives today to carry out a comprehensive three-year plan developed by the company's new CEO Adam Warby, setting a direction to help strengthen its global market leadership position in IT consulting.

By 2011, Avanade believes its new strategic initiatives will help it nearly double its revenue, which reached more than $850 million by the end of the company's fiscal year in 2008. Warby will execute a series of market leadership and technology investments goals that will accelerate Avanade's ability to create even greater value for customers.

"I firmly believe that market leadership will be achieved in three ways," said Warby. "One, continued focus on helping our customers succeed in today's challenging global economy; two, enabling greater connectedness of our employees in ways that unleash an unrivalled level of shared experience and insight; and three, growing our investment in developing innovative solutions that create competitive differentiation and help customers achieve results with less resources."

"Avanade's culture is founded on a principle of passion for delivering results for our customers," Warby added. "What differentiates Avanade is our relentless pursuit of providing superior solutions based on the Microsoft platform and delivery excellence through our Global Delivery Network. Delivering solutions that improve worker productivity and collaboration, improve data center operations, attract and retain customers and fine tune enterprise performance are examples of how Avanade is helping customers realize results."

As part of this initiative, Avanade also announced the appointment of a new executive and the promotion of two other executives, in a move to bolster the company's customer-centric culture and build on its track record of innovation and technology expertise on the Microsoft platform.

New Executive Appointments

Aziz Virani joins Avanade after more than 23 years at Accenture as Avanade's new Executive Vice President of Global Technologies and Solutions. In his new role, Virani oversees the direction of the company's technology vision, solution investments and alliances.

"Aziz is uniquely qualified to help Avanade continue to deepen its customer-centric culture and technology innovation that help our customers do more with less," said Warby. "His leadership and guidance will be a tremendous benefit as we maintain and build on our reputation for delivering solutions that create measurable results for our customers."

In addition to Virani's new appointment, Avanade also announced the promotions of Tyson Hartman to Global Chief Technology Officer and Mike Gilkey to Executive Vice President of Sales and Marketing.

In his new role, Hartman will report to Aziz Virani and will be responsible for defining Avanade's technology vision and innovation agenda. Hartman will continue to serve as Vice President of Enterprise Technology Solutions, where he leads worldwide strategy and the team responsible for Avanade's business in Application Development, Enterprise Infrastructure and Managed Services, providing solutions across the complete enterprise IT lifecycle. Hartman joined Avanade in June 2000 and has held a variety of positions in his more than seven years with the company.

As Executive Vice President, Mike Gilkey will oversee Avanade's worldwide sales and marketing strategy and initiatives. Gilkey joined Avanade in 2000 and his responsibilities have included serving as vice president of Americas market development and general manager for Avanade's U.S. Western region. Prior to joining Avanade, Gilkey was with Accenture where he managed large customer projects primarily within the products and communications and high-tech industries. These efforts included enterprise resource planning implementations (involving products such as SAP, PeopleSoft and Baan), developing IT strategies and large custom development projects.

About Avanade

Avanade is a global IT consultancy dedicated to using the Microsoft platform to help enterprises achieve profitable growth. Through proven solutions that extend Microsoft technologies, Avanade helps enterprises increase revenue, reduce costs and reinvest in innovation to gain competitive advantage. Avanade consultants deliver value according to each customer's requirements, timeline and budget by combining insight, innovation and the talent of our global workforce. Avanade, which is majority owned by Accenture, was founded in 2000 by Accenture and Microsoft Corporation. Avanade has more than 8,000 professionals serving customers in 22 countries worldwide. Additional information can be found at www.avanade.com.

Avanade and the Avanade logo are registered trademarks or trademarks of Avanade Inc. Other product, service, or company names mentioned herein are the trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective owners.

Contact Information: MEDIA CONTACTS: Avanade Corp. Charlie Zaragoza +1 206 239 5893 Edelman James Boike +1 917 701 8393 (mobile)