Aylesbury’s Esri UK appoints new CTO

Aylesbury-based software company Esri UK has appointed Mark Wells as its new chief technology officer.

Mark was previously head of the company’s technical support and managed cloud service divisions. He is succeeding Charles Kennelly who is now Group CTO at Esri Holding which encompasses: Esri UK, Esri Ireland, and IT professional service company Helyx.

As CTO of Esri UK Mark will be focusing on developing new solutions to make the company’s GIS (geographic information system) more accessible by using SaaS and AI/machine learning to automate workflows and simplifying how applications can be built.

He said: “Esri UK’s biggest opportunity is to keep lowering the barriers to entry of GIS in terms of cost and complexity. We want to make it even more accessible.

''The company has made great progress in supporting large numbers of customers with their migration to online and mobile – we are seeing online GIS growing by around 30 per cent a year.

“My focus will include delivering yet more Esri UK products via SaaS and developing automated workflows using AI and machine learning. Doing this will help make sense of the huge amounts of real-time spatial data coming from IoT sensors and handheld devices.’’

Charles Kennelly’s new role as Group CTO will involve developing the technical direction for all companies that fall within the Esri group. Charles will work closely with Esri Inc, which is in the US, on roadmap development and maximising the groups shared efficiencies.

This promotion comes after 20 years with the company. Charles has worked in numerous technical leadership roles. He was pivotal in changing how GIS was delivered to customers through the creation of the company’s managed cloud services offering.

Charles said: “Esri UK is growing rapidly and to ensure this continues we need to make senior appointments within the Esri Holdings companies who can focus on the operational development of each business and their tech direction.

“We’re at the point with GIS where there is more opportunity than ever to help solve society’s problems. Mark’s technical expertise coupled with his business understanding makes him the perfect candidate to move from being my second-in-command to CTO and help shape the future of GIS in the UK.”

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