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Leadership

Meet the people who lead Advania in the UK

Our experienced leadership team shares a passion for excellence in service, and for developing and implementing solutions to empower our clients to succeed.

We believe the goal of excellence requires a balance of strong direction and careful insight, starting at the most senior level.

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Advania UK leadership team

Photo of Geoff Kneen- Advania UK CEO - Leadership

Geoff Kneen

CEO, Advania UK

An accomplished business leader, with a 20+ year track record of success in engineering, management consulting and technology arenas, Geoff drives transformational change and growth across the business. Geoff became CEO in October 2022.

Geoff Kneen
CEO, Advania UK
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Andrew Insley

Chief Financial Officer, Advania

Andrew is an experienced CFO with experience of working with private equity-backed businesses. Prior to joining us Andrew was with Cordium, an international compliance consulting business for the financial sector. After qualifying as a Chartered Accountant at Deloitte, Andrew held varied finance functions, at household names, including Kingfisher plc and Mattel Inc.

Andrew Insley
Chief Financial Officer, Advania
Photo of Thea Fineren - Advania UK Leadership

Thea Fineren

Chief People Officer

Thea brings a wealth of experience within the People and Talent sphere, having worked across both corporate and start-up environments in Finance, Professional Services and Tech industries. As Chief People Officer, Thea’s focus is on organic growth of each team within the business and harnessing the impressive capability across the group.

Thea Fineren
Chief People Officer
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Des Hudson

Client Success and Delivery Director

Des has been with the business for over 15 years and in the industry for 20+ years. He has a proven track record of shaping and delivering Managed Services in a fast-paced industry. His technical and business background helps ensure we are leveraging the best of technology to help provide services that solve business needs. Des oversees the managed service part of the business leading a team of over 400 people delivering services 24/7/365.

Des Hudson
Client Success and Delivery Director
Photo of Chris O'Brien - Advania UK Leadership and Microsoft MVP

Chris O’Brien

Products and Services Director

Chris has over 20 years’ experience of working with Microsoft technologies to transform how organisations work. He’s spent a lot of time leading Microsoft 365 and SharePoint delivery, and has a background in managing development teams. Chris regularly speaks at Microsoft and industry events, and has worked for Microsoft in the past as a SharePoint field engineer. In technology terms, his core strengths are around the Microsoft cloud stack – especially Microsoft 365 (including Teams, SharePoint and the Power Platform) and Azure. Chris is one of only a handful of people in the UK recognised by Microsoft as a Microsoft ‘Most Valuable Professional’ – and has been for the past 15 years. He’s had significant early exposure to aspects of Microsoft 365 and SharePoint in this capacity and works with Microsoft on several private programmes as they develop the platform. 

Chris O’Brien
Products and Services Director
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Patrick Thatcher

Group Professional Services Director

Patrick is a rounded leader and has led our professional services for more than 15 years, leading a variety of complex, interlinked teams across all sectors. He has strong commercial experience ensuring fast but stable growth while maintaining high client satisfaction. Patrick has a proven track record with designing, integrating and restructuring teams for growth in line with various target operating models.

Patrick Thatcher
Group Professional Services Director
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Nick Isherwood

Chief Information Officer and Azure Product Director

Nick’s role as CIO covers the development and implementation of the technology strategy for the business, including our enterprise solutions, internal systems, all our business change activities and our approach to security. Nick is also Azure Product Director, working closely with Microsoft to help our clients understand the business value of cloud transformation, holding over 25 years of experience in cloud infrastructure, service integration and management.

Nick Isherwood
Chief Information Officer and Azure Product Director
Photo of Dan Sharp - Advania UK Leadership

Dan Sharp

Mirus Business Director

As Business Director of Mirus, Dan leads a team passionate about delivering exceptional value to clients, bringing the most innovative and creative services and solutions. As an expert in the wide array of solutions that makes up IT and tech, he brings more than 20 years of experience in the technology industry, working alongside our clients to bring the best and most appropriate solutions to their individual businesses.

Dan Sharp
Mirus Business Director
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Our difference is our people

Advania UK's board members

About Advania

We are a technology services, solutions and support business with a passion for helping ambitious organisations and their people to succeed. Our people aim to deliver exceptional results and have the experience and expertise to deliver a consistent quality to our clients.

Be the difference – work with us

Do you like nothing better than helping others to achieve their goals? We are constantly working to gather and develop the best individuals who our common passion.

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