SEATTLE –Oct. 6, 2011 – Avanade, a business technology solutions and managed services provider, today announced Howard Kilman has been appointed to chief leadership officer, and Aziz Virani has been named the new area president for North America. Both roles took effect September 1.

Howard Kilman: Chief Leadership Officer
“Ensuring we maintain an unrelenting focus on our customers requires we continue to invest in cultivating leaders who share that vision and passion,” said Adam Warby, Avanade CEO. “In this newly created role, Howard’s charter will be to work with our executives and HR team to broaden our current leadership development program and maximize our investments for developing leadership capabilities across the business.”

Previously, Kilman was area president for North America, responsible for guiding the sales, delivery and operations of Avanade's largest market. Kilman has more than 24 years of experience in corporate and professional services industries, and commercial and government software development environments. Prior to Avanade, Howard served as the general manager of the South Pacific and Americas regions for Microsoft Consulting Services.

Aziz Virani: Area President, North America
“Aziz brings with him years of business and technology innovation leadership that will be invaluable in his new role,” said Warby. “Building on the foundation Howard established, Aziz will be able to apply his experience leading innovation at Avanade to drive technology excellence in close partnerships with our customers in order to help them realize business results on Microsoft technology.”

Prior to being named Area President, North America, Virani served as executive vice president for Avanade’s Global Technology & Solutions organization. In that role, he built Avanade’s incubation and innovation organization and industrialized its approach to building world-class solutions, services and engineering assets to enhance customer delivery. In formalizing Avanade’s corporate development approach, Virani supported Avanade’s aggressive growth strategy through strategic acquisitions, geographic expansion and the development of new businesses.

Before joining Avanade, Aziz spent more than 20 years at Accenture, where he served as the global managing partner, responsible for Accenture’s systems integration and technology consulting practice in the Financial Services and Resources operating units. Virani also played a leadership role in developing the Application Outsourcing practice in the Accenture Financial Services operating group. Prior to that, Virani was the client group managing partner for Accenture’s Financial Services practice on the U.S. West Coast.