JOHN CROSS, 'WORLD LEADING CIO', JOINS BOARD OF SERVICETEC

ServiceTec, the independent managed IT support provider, has appointed John Cross as a non-executive director from immediate effect.

A former Group Vice President and Chief Information Officer of BP plc and one of four non- executive directors to the UK Government Department of Works and Pensions, John Cross has an international reputation for re-engineering business processes and pioneering new ways of delivering value through outsourcing.

Bryan Mills, Chairman of ServiceTec Group is delighted to secure his services. He said:

'John Cross is a strategist who has demonstrated at the highest level how IT can be used to leverage business change throughout an organisation.

'He has significant experience in managing global organisations, of building strategic alliances and delivering improved business performance. ServiceTec will benefit greatly from his insights and international contacts.'

John Cross was responsible for restructuring BP's worldwide IT activities into a single fully integrated IT organisation. This included setting the strategy and new structures for the integration of Amoco in 1998 and delivery of a new global outsourcing strategy.  By streamlining and re-focusing IT expenditure, he delivered annual savings to the corporation of over $500 million. CIO Magazine awarded him the title of 'World Leader' in 1998 and 1999 and he was appointed to the "Hall of Fame" as one of the 12 most influential IT leaders of the decade.

More recently he has been responsible for the growth and successful launch of AppNet to the NASDAQ market.  This involved the acquisition and integration of 12 companies within 12 months, creating an organisation with revenues reaching $200 million prior to its acquisition by Commerce One for $2.2bn.

ServiceTec, with a turnover of 25m, was established 14 years ago to provide IT support for mid-range environment and later for the entire desktop environment.  Over recent years it has repositioned itself within the market and has gained a number of major outsourcing contracts for managed IT support. This type of agreement enables ServiceTec to leverage its considerable knowledge of IT asset management to align IT resources more closely with business processes and provide higher levels of support from infrastructure investment.

ServiceTec has grown organically to provide IT infrastructure support across a range of market sectors. Within the UK its clients include: Alliance and Leicester; HM Treasury; Jaguar; Marie Curie Cancer Care and Virgin.

In 2001 co-founder and CEO, Andy Anderson moved to the US to drive the growth of ServiceTec Airport Services in the USA and across the world. It provides IT systems and ticketing support to the air transport industry with contracts at eight major US airports.  The company is at the forefront of world airport security, and has been instrumental in the introduction of iris scanning technology at Amsterdam's Schiphol Airport.

ServiceTec is now the largest independent provider of IT infrastructure support in the UK and has offices in Europe, Japan and the USA with a presence at airports and client locations worldwide.