Patrick Quesnel (Microsoft)
Microsoft New Zealand is on the hunt for a new cloud chief as its Azure business group lead Patrick (Padi) Quesnel vacates his role to head up the vendor’s Azure marketing team for the Asia Pacific (APAC) region.
From 15 February, Quesnel will become Microsoft’s Azure infrastructure and hybrid lead for the Asia Pacific region. He moves to the new job after a six-and-a-half-year tenure as the company’s NZ senior cloud and artificial intelligence (AI) business group lead, a role he stepped into after more than three years with the vendor in other various positions.
The new role will see Quesnel work alongside customers and partners across Asia Pacific to address local cloud requirements and build momentum on the global shift to cloud computing.
Microsoft New Zealand said it is now seeking a successor to the Azure lead role, with the candidate to be responsible for driving cloud adoption across New Zealand organisations, with a strong focus on preparing senior business and public sector leaders for Microsoft’s new data centre region.
Quesnel’s departure from the NZ cloud lead role comes after a period of intense activity for the company’s New Zealand cloud business, with the former Nike and Speedo executive playing a crucial role in delivering Microsoft’s first ever hyperscale data centre region in New Zealand.
According to Microsoft, Quesnel worked tirelessly over a number of years to drive the data centre project and sign flagship anchor customers such as Fonterra and Bank of New Zealand (BNZ).
As head of Microsoft’s Azure and AI strategy, Quesnel also helped to grow its AI and cloud business more than 200 per cent in the year to 2020 and oversaw a digital skilling program for more than 1,300 public sector employees in 2019.
“You couldn’t ask for a better legacy than the data centre region, and most of us would consider it a career-defining achievement,” Microsoft New Zealand managing director Vanessa Sorensen said. “But in taking the APAC role, Padi demonstrates the sort of person he is.
“He’s not content to rest on his laurels – he wants everyone across the region to enjoy equal gains and not get left behind by the data revolution."
“The incredible energy Padi always brings to the job and his genuine passion for helping customers see and realise their potential have made him such a standout member of our New Zealand team,” she added.
For Quesnel, the next few years represent a time of opportunity both for Microsoft and other organisations across Asia Pacific, given the investment being made in local data centre regions, cloud migration and digitisation.
“I can’t wait to collaborate more widely with partners and customers across the APAC region to help them realise that opportunity,” Quesnel said. “That said, this isn’t goodbye to New Zealand. As a proud Kiwi I’ll be taking a keen interest in local developments in my new role as well.”
