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Whitty to lead Air IT on strategic buy-and-build

Air IT has some impressive growth plans and their recent investment from private equity firm, August Equity, will enable to company to expand with strategic acquisitions. With plans to continue its trajectory of organic growth, delivering a CAGR of 28% in the last 3 years, the managed service provider will also be looking to increase its presence in the UK with a number of strategic bolt-ons.

In addition to the Investment funding, Air IT has announced the appointment of industry veteran Ian Brown as Chairman and John Whitty as CEO. Prior to this, Whitty has led inorganic growth at Pipex, GCI and Solar, demonstrating Air IT’s appetite to realise its ambitious plans. James Healey, Managing Director of Air IT will bolster the team as COO.

John Whitty, CEO of Air IT, has recently joined the company as he saw a clear opportunity. He commented, “Having personally tracked Air IT’s tremendous growth, technical expertise and commitment to customer experience for a number of years, I am delighted to have the opportunity to lead the company into its next phase of development. Air IT has spent the last couple of years investing deeply in their people, systems, processes and product portfolio and this will allow us to support the diverse needs of the SME. I’m confident this investment will underpin our plans to continue to grow both organically and through acquisition. In order to achieve these aspirations, we recognised that we needed a proven, technology aware, financial partner who have demonstrated their experience in supporting management teams to deliver similar growth previously and August Equity have an exceptional track record in doing this. The Air IT leadership team and I are looking forward to working with Ian Brown once again, having worked with him previously in this market.”

Ian Brown, Chairman of Air IT commented, "I am delighted to be partnering with August once again to build a leading UK IT managed services provider following our highly successful SecureData venture. It is also a pleasure to be working alongside John who I know as an accomplished business leader through our time together at GCI a few years ago. Air IT plans to tap into the significant underlying demand for ICT services from SME organisations driven by both digitisation and the major skills shortage throughout much of UK. I look forward to helping John and the team develop the business organically and through complementary acquisitions over the next few years.”