South Florida Tech HubSouth Florida Tech Hub
17
Sep, 2023

By Nikki Cabus

CloudHesive appoints Global Leader Michael Tobin OBE to its Board of Directors

Read Time 3 Minutes

CloudHesive announced the appointment of Michael Tobin OBE to its board of directors.

Michael brings decades of experience in corporate leadership and is a globally recognized leader. He is a serial technology entrepreneur and pioneer with over 30 years experience in the telecoms & technology sector.

“CloudHesive is one of the fastest growing companies in the United States“, said Michael Tobin. “I’m delighted to be joining this exciting organization as it continues to cement its position as a leading international AWS partner, leveraging its broad capability and experience to create significant value for its clients worldwide.”

An innovative and experienced leader, Tobin has decades of technical industry experience, including his role as Chief Executive Officer of UK’s Telecity Group PLC from 2002 to 2014. There, he led the company’s transformation from a £6 million market cap entity in 2002 to a top-performing FTSE250 company valued at over £2.5 billion. Under his direction, Telecity Group was recognized as Britain’s Most Admired Tech Company in 2012, helping to solidify its position as an industry leader.

Throughout his career, Tobin has received numerous accolades, including the London Business Awards‘ “Business Turnaround of the Year” in 2005, the UK Innovation Awards’ “IPO of the Year” in 2008, and the techMARK Personality of the Year in that same year. In 2014, Tobin was honored in the Queen’s New Year Honours List with the Order of the British Empire (OBE) medal for his outstanding services to the Digital Economy.

His dedication to excellence extends beyond his professional endeavors, as he ran 40 marathons in 40 days for the Prince’s Trust in 2016 and trekked the South Pole in 2020 for charity.

“We are thrilled to welcome Michael Tobin to CloudHesive as a new member of our Board of Directors,” said Jim Walker, CEO of CloudHesive. “His remarkable track record of leadership, innovation, and commitment to excellence aligns with our company’s values and current vision.”

CloudHesive is an Amazon Premier Partner and an Amazon Managed Services Partner founded in 2014 by veterans in the cloud technology space. We help our customers adapt and transform their organizations by leveraging the power of the public cloud ecosystem through consulting, and next-generation managed services with a focus on Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, and Application Optimization. We service global customers and have headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and offices in Denver, Colorado, Santiago, Chile, Bogota, Colombia and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“We are thrilled to announce Michael Tobin OBE’s addition to our board of directors. His esteemed leadership enhances our outstanding team further. As we remain dedicated to supporting our clients in their AWS digital and AI initiatives, his presence strongly reaffirms our mission,” wrote John Clendennen, CloudHesive’s Chief Revenue Officer in a social media post.

 

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22
May, 2023

By Nikki Cabus

Ft. Lauderdale-based CloudHesive, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Partner, acquires Eplexity

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CloudHesive, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Consulting Partner, announced the acquisition of fellow Premier Partner Eplexity, with additional investment from Strattam Capital. 

The combination creates one of the top “pure play” AWS partners in the United States and Latin America, with deep Amazon Connect and application modernization expertise underpinning a focus on helping customers get the most from their cloud investments.

Eplexity is one of the fastest-growing Amazon Web Services Partners with expertise in managed services, large-scale legacy to cloud migrations, and automation through DevOps pipeline implementation and management. Their CXOS Cloud Management Services Platform is built to AWS best practice standards utilizing DevOps tools and practices. CXOS enables customers to provide faster cloud adoption through proven, secure, cost-effective, and optimized migration methodologies, which increase performance and reliability.

The combined company will serve over 500 clients across a diversified set of industries, including oil and gas, logistics, travel and hospitality, healthcare, high-tech, and the public sector.

This milestone will drive growth and elevate the service quality of the combined company’s growing customer list. “The acquisition of Eplexity brings together two AWS Premier Consulting Partner ecosystem leaders to deliver a pure-play solution of scale to the market,” said Jim Walker, CEO, CloudHesive.

“The Eplexity team’s proven success in the small to mid-size market, combined with CloudHesive’s strength at enterprise scale, gives us unmatched capabilities delivering products, services, and solutions to help customers achieve their AWS goals.”

This investment represents the second acquisition for CloudHesive. In 2022, CloudHesive acquired Dextr Cloud, the industry’s most powerful customer service and performance contact center, as a service solution developed on the AWS service eco-system. This was rebranded ConnectPath CX Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) platform, powered by Amazon Connect. The acquisition of Eplexity is critical to help CloudHesive grow its Contact Center, AI/ML, Big data, and application optimization practices. This acquisition will increase CloudHesive’s footprint in the United States to include an office in Denver, Colorado, and add additional Amazon Web Service Partner Programs and Competencies to its portfolio.

CloudHesive is an Amazon Premier Partner and an Amazon Managed Services Partner founded in 2014 by veterans in the cloud technology space. We help our customers adapt and transform their organizations by leveraging the power of the public cloud ecosystem through consulting, and next-generation managed services with a focus on Operational Excellence, Security, Reliability, and Application Optimization. We service global customers and have headquarters in Fort Lauderdale, FL, and offices in Norfolk, Virginia, Santiago, Chile, Bogota, Colombia and Buenos Aires, Argentina.

“Joining forces with CloudHesive allows us to merge their cutting-edge technologies and service solutions with our Managed and Application Modernization Services,” said John Clendennen, CEO of Eplexity. “This powerful combination will provide unique, customized solutions for customers looking to modernize or transition to AWS environments.”

Strattam Capital first invested in CloudHesive in 2021 to enable CloudHesive to accelerate its pace of innovation while continuing to provide best-in-class services to its high-profile customer base. In addition, the investment provided CloudHesive with the resources to expand its operations and sales team, supporting customers in both the public sector and commercial space, and to pursue rapid geographic expansion.

Click here to learn more about CloudHesive. 

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21
Aug, 2022

By Nikki Cabus

394 Florida companies make the 2022 Inc. 5000 list; South Florida strong with 171

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The popular Inc. 5000 list of Fastest Growing Private Companies across the United States is out for 2022 — and the state of Florida is looking pretty strong.

From healthcare to education to marketing and construction, Florida’s top companies represented a multitude of industries. Over a 3-year span from 2018 – 2021, Florida companies had a 239% median growth, $18.8 billion in total revenue, and 36, 540 jobs added.

Two Florida companies made the overall Top 10 List: HighKey at #5 and Homethreads at #8. HighKey is a food & beverage company based in Orlando with 41,585% growth and Homethreads is a retail company based in Boca Raton with 25,851% growth.

This year, Inc. 5000 also listed the Top 10 diverse leaders of 2022 and Florida had two honorable mentions: HighKey once again and Zimba & PLUS ULTRA, a consumer products company based out of Boca Raton. Zimba & PLUS ULTRA was also listed in the Top Women Leaders category.

Through a 3-year period of uncertainty and change, these companies have shown a resiliency and level of innovation like no other. Of the 394 Florida-based companies, 61 were newly founded and an impressive 85 were repeat honorees.

Below are the Top 10 Florida-based companies, South Florida-based companies, and how they compare on a national level.

 

TOP 10 Fastest Growing Companies in FLORIDA:

  • #5 – HighKey (Orlando) – Food & Beverage – 41,585% growth
  • #8 – Homethreads (Boca Raton) – Retail – 25,851% growth
  • #35 – Zimba & PLUS ULTRA (Boca Raton) – Consumer Products – 9,349% growth
  • #47 – The Snow Agency (Miami) – Advertising & Marketing – 6,953% growth
  • #48 – OneRail (Orlando) – Software – 6,879% growth
  • #50 – KITRUM (Clearwater) – IT Services – 6,799% growth
  • #58 – AMA Consulting Group (Winter Park) – Government & Services – 6,218% growth
  • #59 – 365 LOGISTICS (Ft. Lauderdale) – Logistics & Transportation – 6,093% growth
  • #67 – Poseidon Management of Florida Get Staffed Up (Miami) – Human Resources – 5,807% growth
  • #68 – Octillion (Boynton Beach) – Media – 5,793% growth

 

Top 10 Fastest Growing Companies in SOUTH FLORIDA (Miami Metro Region):

  • #8 – Homethreads (Boca Raton) – Retail – 25,851% growth
  • #35 – Zimba & PLUS ULTRA (Boca Raton) – Consumer Products – 9,349% growth
  • #47 – The Snow Agency (Miami) – Advertising & Marketing – 6,953% growth
  • #59 – 365 LOGISTICS (Ft. Lauderdale) – Logistics & Transportation – 6,093% growth
  • #67 – Poseidon Management of Florida Get Staffed Up (Miami) – Human Resources – 5,807% growth
  • #68 – Octillion (Boynton Beach) – Media – 5,793% growth
  • #99 – HCM Unlocked (Boca Raton) – Human Resources – 4,385% growth
  • #100 – Performance Golf (Ft. Lauderdale) – Sports -4,323% growth
  • #122 – Stylecraft (Boca Raton) – Manufacturing – 3,733% growth
  • #139 – Air Pros (Hollywood) – Consumer Services – 3,392% growth

 

Interesting Stats:

  • Of the overall 394 Florida-based companies, almost 45% were from South Florida with 171 represented.
  • Of the Top 10 Florida-based companies, 60% were based in South Florida.
  • Of the Top 10 South Florida based companies, 20% were from Miami-Dade county, 30% from Broward county, and 50% from Palm Beach county.

 

Here’s a shoutout to some of our South Florida Tech Hub members who made the 2022 list:

  • #618 – ShipMonk (Ft. Lauderdale) – Logistics & Transportation – 1,025% growth (5 year repeat)
  • #697 – Sloane Staffing (Palm Beach Gardens) – Business Products & Services – 897% growth
  • #886 – Salesmsg (Delray Beach) – Software – 718% growth
  • #998 – PlanHub (West Palm Beach) – Construction – 654% growth (2 year repeat)
  • #1306 – Social Mobile (Hollywood) – Business Products & Services – 498% growth
  • #1740 – CloudHesive (Ft. Lauderdale) – Business Products & Services – 353% growth (4 year repeat)
  • #2016 – Gravity IT Resources (Ft. Lauderdale) – Human Resources – 299% growth (4 year repeat)
  • #2345 – PeakActivity (Boynton Beach) – Business Products & Services – 250% growth (3 year repeat)
  • #2359 – TechStrong Group (Boca Raton) – Media – 248% growth (3 year repeat)
  • #2990 – Dedicated IT (Lake Park) – IT Services – 181% growth (3 year repeat)
  • #3301 – The SilverLogic (Boca Raton) – Software – 180% growth (3 year repeat)
  • #3917 – Digital Resource (West Palm Beach) – Advertising & Marketing – 125% growth (5 year repeat)
  • #4435 – ModMed (Boca Raton) – IT Services – 100% growth (7 year repeat honoree!!)

 

To learn more about the 2022 Inc. 5000 Fastest Growing Companies, visit https://www.inc.com/inc5000/2022

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25
Apr, 2022

By Nikki Cabus

Broward-based CloudHesive announces recent acquisition of Dextr

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CloudHesive, a Broward-based Amazon Web Services Premier Consulting partner and managed services provider, today announced the acquisition of Dextr, the industry’s most powerful customer service and performance dashboard for the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud contact center. This combination delivers a unique, easy-to-use, contact center solution backed by a committed Amazon Connect leader focused on happy customers and continued innovation.

Powered by Amazon Connect, Dextr combines a full-agent dashboard with a rich library of cloud services at an affordable price. Dextr deploys rapidly to complement and enhance the expanding capabilities of Amazon Connect, accelerating time-to-value and business impact. The powerful combination of Dextr and CloudHesive extends CloudHesive’s investment in the Amazon Connect contact center space and provides customers with world-class agent management, contact center operations, and reporting capabilities for their Amazon Connect deployments.

“We’re excited to bring the Dextr cloud platform into the CloudHesive portfolio,” says Jim Walker, CEO of CloudHesive. “We can offer a truly unparalleled customer contact experience platform for our customers combining Dextr with our expertise in consulting and managed services for Amazon Connect and our Customer Connect software-as-a-service platform.”

The addition of Dextr rounds out CloudHesive’s leadership in the cloud contact center space. CloudHesive is an AWS Premier Partner and AWS Managed Services partner that delivers comprehensive consulting and managed services to a large and growing base of public sector and commercial accounts worldwide. It serves the Amazon Connect ecosystem leveraging its Centricity Customer Connect software-as-a-service platform to deliver migration and integration projects, deploy contact centers for remote workforces, develop capacity-on-demand and disaster-recovery-as-a-service solutions, and implement and manage cloud contact center security operations.

“CloudHesive’s status as an AWS Premier partner, excellent reputation, extensive footprint across the US and LATAM regions, and their deep knowledge and expertise with Amazon Connect make them the perfect choice to take Dextr to the next level,” says Peter Buswell, founder of Dextr. “They’re a true leader and innovator in the cloud contact center space.”

Dextr, is available now via the AWS Marketplace, a curated digital catalog that makes it easy for public sector and commercial organizations to discover, procure, entitle, provision, and govern third-party applications.

Visit http://www.cloudhesive.com for more information.

06
Apr, 2020

By Nancy Dahlberg

Member Spotlight | Jim Walker & CloudHesive

Read Time 3 Minutes

Business: Founded by cloud executives, CloudHesive provides cloud solutions that help companies improve security, reduce operating costs and increase productivity.

HQ: Fort Lauderdale

CEO: James Walker

No. of employees: 50-55

Website: CloudHesive.com

 

 

 

In 2014, Jim Walker debated moving to Boston to continue his cloud technology career or starting a company in South Florida. Lucky for the tri-county region, he chose the latter.

The venture he co-founded was CloudHesive, a Fort Lauderdale-based technology company that provides cloud solutions through consulting and managed services with a focus on security, reliability, availability and scalability.

“We are a Managed Service Provider helping customers consume cloud services,” said Walker, CloudHesive’s CEO.

The company’s services include everything from migrating large data centers into Amazon Web Services to DevOps work building out infrastructure as code deployments all the way through to migrating contact centers out of old legacy equipment onto cloud-centric solutions and services, said Walker. He is a 25-year tech veteran who was previously Global Head of Operations of Operations and Security at Pegasystems.

AWS PREMIER PARTNER

CloudHesive is also the largest AWS Premier Partner in Florida. “We are niche player for Amazon Connect, Amazon Workspaces, and Amazon Elemental,” he said.

Today, CloudHesive has 50 to 55 employees split between its offices in Fort Lauderdale, Buenos Aires, Argentina and Santiago, Chile. Last year, the multi-million-dollar company was named to the Inc. 5000 list of fastest-growing companies, with a 424% 2-year growth rate.

“We’ve grown 80% year over year, and we won South Florida’s Fastest Growing Companies. This year we are projecting another 60-80% growth,” Walker said. “From a headcount perspective, we are anticipating adding another 10 heads.”

CloudHesive moved into new offices off Commercial Boulevard at the end of 2019. It also opened its Santiago office last year, Walker said. “We’ve had some incredible growth and we’ve been blessed with great customers.” Overall, he attributes the growth to being obsessed with customer success. “We go above and beyond to make sure all of our customers are successful.”


The company began expanding to Latin America in 2017, where it has set up full service offices to serve the region, Walker said. “We saw a need in the market for cloud services. It is a green-field geography — there are not a lot of cloud partners down there right now. We thought it would be advantageous sooner rather than later.”

Still, hiring and retaining high quality tech talent has been a challenge in the South Florida market, he said. “One of the biggest skills you can have down here is a Cloud or Amazon certification and we focus on that. So every time we bring someone in, it is hard to keep them retained.”

HIRING FROM ALL 3 COUNTIES

CloudHesive hires from Palm Beach to Miami, and looks for great engineers, not necessarily cloud engineers, Walker said. The company brings in people with skills in everything from VMware to networking to security. While leveraging those skills, the company can train them to be cloud engineers.

CloudHesive became a member of  Palm Beach Tech about a year ago. The company hosts community meetups for AWS and at universities. On campuses, Walker has also judged startup pitch competitions and done proof of concepts for next-generation technology for student labs.

One of the areas where South Florida is still lacking, Walker says, is with formal training on cloud based solutions. That would be a smart area for universities to add to curricula, he said. Miami Dade College is already starting to do that.

Culture is an important recruiting tool. CloudHesive has a flexible work environment with work-at-home days, Flip Flop Fridays and a java-rater in the office. “We have corporate events and happy hours,” Walker said. “We try to have some fun while we make our customers successful.”

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CloudHesive appoints Global Leader Michael Tobin OBE to its Board of Directors
Ft. Lauderdale-based CloudHesive, an Amazon Web Services (AWS) Premier Partner, acquires Eplexity
394 Florida companies make the 2022 Inc. 5000 list; South Florida strong with 171
Broward-based CloudHesive announces recent acquisition of Dextr
Member Spotlight | Jim Walker & CloudHesive