ASE appoints Jonathan Staff as CRO with growth agenda

Aussie cloud services provider wants to challenge big players with more flexible, customised solutions for local market

ASE has appointed Jonathan Staff as chief revenue officer (CRO) to lead growth across cloud, cybersecurity and managed services with a view to differentiating its offering for Australian businesses.

Staff joins from ASX-listed Macquarie Technology Group, where he led the company’s private cloud division.

ASE believes Australian business are seeking partners that can cater to their specific requirements, not just offering generic cloud services. It sees an opportunity to address rising costs, data sovereignty requirements and demand for AI workloads with localised compute options.

“The managed technology and security services market is ripe for disruption. Customers demand more choice and innovation, and ASE delivers,” Staff said.

In particular, it says the market continues to be dominated by big tech and Australian companies are suffering from lack of choice and flexibility across these critical technology domains.

It’s an issue the ACCC recently highlighted in its final report for the Digital Platform Services Enquiry (DPSI), warning that the dominance of large, vertically integrated cloud platforms can hamper competition and innovation.

“As Australian businesses look to remain competitive while being disrupted like never before by AI, cloud and cybersecurity, access to a diverse range of technology and skills through partners they can trust is more important than ever,” he told CRN Australia.

The situation risks vendor lock-in, arbitrary price increases, declining service levels, one-sided contracts, and lack of access to skills and capability, according to Staff.

“ASE wants to challenge the status quo by offering more choice and flexibility when developing solutions to common business problems, meeting customers where they and evolving solutions that continue to meet their changing needs, even if that means going against the grain,” he said.

The business wants to offer choice and flexibility beyond the major vendors — understanding customer needs, developing solutions in line with changing requirements and, above all, providing value at all times.

“What ASE focuses on is asking the right questions to truly understanding what value looks like to them,” Staff said.

“That being said, some things are universally true — customers want a solution that solves their needs, really well, for a fair price, from a partner they can trust.”

In the last year, ASE has grown revenues over 300 percent and employed more than 50 new team members. The business plans to continue on this trajectory, offering more choice and flexibility to Australian businesses along with new capabilities within the group.

“Longer term, [it’s] to be the place that Australia's best technology professionals want to work and the partner that Australian business want to work with,” Staff ended.