AXELOS have announced that their CEO Peter Hepworth is moving up from his current position to head a new group within parent company Capita (which includes AXELOS itself). Taking over Peter’s CEO role from 1st January will be the current AXELOS Chief Finance Officer, Abid Ismail.
Peter Hepworth has done a sterling job getting AXELOS off the ground from a standing start two and a half years ago. This includes getting to grips with the notoriously fickle ITSM industry and its various vested interests, whilst setting up a new organisation from scratch to create and manage global educational content, exams etc. With the resources of Capita behind them, AXELOS have been able to create a new level of engagement with the industry, including for example advertising in mainstream national publications, and a business-based focus and value proposition for ITIL and PRINCE2. During Peter’s stewardship they have launched new products – such as Agile PRINCE2 and RESILIA for Cyber Security – with the forthcoming ITIL Practitioner programme due in February 2016. From the industry perspective the level of open engagement coming from AXELOS has been a positive breath of fresh air. We wish Peter success in his new role.
Looking forward, the new CEO will face a number of challenges. These centre on balancing demand from the ITSM industry for more new and upgraded products with corporate demands for AXELOS to monetise their output and growth and meet the original requirements and expectations from inception. There are some high profit and growth targets which might be difficult to reconcile with the need for ongoing investment. A lot will depend on the success of the new ITIL Practitioner product, and how well this can be scaled and made into a global commercial success (initial feedback is positive on this). Other products to freshen the ITIL and PRINCE2 portfolios will no doubt need to be implemented in due course. For AXELOS – now a fast growing enterprise – there will also be a need to consolidate its people and approach to ensure synergy and focus.
From the ITSMF UK perspective, we want to work with AXELOS – and with other bodies and vendors in our industry. These relationships will help us to develop and deliver guidance that assists practitioners do their job and organisations to succeed with ITSM. It’s a crowded market right now and we recognise the need to focus on our own areas of value and expertise. Our focus is on community and collaboration, which encompasses all areas of ITSM (including but also well beyond ITIL). We are also working to develop more useable content around the value proposition for ITSM and how this is sold and marketed.
We wish the new AXELOS CEO well and look forward to working together in the near and longer-term future.
Barclay Rae
Barclay Rae has extensive experience as a consultant, analyst and subject matter expert in IT Service Management. He is the Lead Editor of ITIL 4 Create Deliver Support (CDS) Managing Professional guide, a member of the ITIL 4 Architect team and a co-author of ITIL Practitioner.
He also has considerable business and management experience in the industry, both as a consultancy vendor and also working with industry bodies and vendors such as SDI, AXELOS, APMG, and Axios. He brings industry and subject knowledge to ITSMF UK's strategic direction, as well as practical experience and commercial skills in running a small business organisation.
