Chinese owner turns to Aussie hires

Chinese-owned Australian IT outsourcing and professional services firm Praxa has appointed two new senior executives.

Praxa has appointed James Kirk to drive Australian sales as national sales and business development director. He has 21 years in sales, marketing, business development and management in IT, manufacturing and logistics companies. He has worked for Accenture, Anderson Consulting, Novell Consulting in the Asia-Pacific region, NCR and AT&T USA. Kirk will be based in Sydney.

The 21-year-old services firm has also appointed an EDS sales and account manager as its newest business development manager--Mike Creevey. He has about 27 years experience in IT, including roles in strategic planning, management, sales and business development for companies such as IBM, Victoria TAB and the Commonwealth Bank. Creevey will be based in Melbourne.

Concurrently, Praxa announced the appointment of Serhat Oguz as finance director. Oguz, who will be based in Sydney, has more than 15 years IT-related experience in companies including SAP, Computervision and enterprise application software vendor ARIBA.

Praxa acting general manager Allan Hyde said further appointments could shortly be announced as part of a new strategy to lift company revenues.

“It is planned that together James and Mike will build new revenue streams, attract new clients, consolidate existing relationships and develop new alliances to move our business ahead,” Hyde said.

Listed Chinese company chinadotcom corporation bought Praxa for $US6.4 million, subject to clawback provisions based on future performance, in February.