Jo Masters
Publicis Sapient has acquired Salesforce consultancy Tquila ANZ, bringing its business into the fold with the exception of its CEO, Jo Masters.
Founded in 2014, Tquila is headquartered in Sydney with teams in Brisbane, Melbourne and Canberra, specialising in Vlocity and Salesforce, Mulesoft and multi-cloud implementations.
Acquired for an unknown sum, the move will see Tquila become part of Publicis Sapient and strengthens its local Salesforce capabilities, as well as its global distributed delivery model.
ARN understands Masters stepped down as CEO back in November and has been operating in a consultative capacity during the acquisition process.
“The acquisition by Publicis Sapient is a great outcome for Tquila ANZ employees, customers and partners, she said.
“It has been a incredible journey and credit goes to the exceptional work and talent of Tquila employees who built a great company over the past 10 years.”
Masters' efforts in the channel have been recognised by ARN at a range of events, which include her win of the Achievement award at the ARN Women in ICT Awards 2019. She also was highly commended in the Management Excellence category at the ARN Innovation Awards 2019 and the Achievement category at the ARN Women in ICT Awards 2018.
Credit: Publicis Sapient Tquila chairman John Cassidy, CTO Amit Chakraborty and co-founders Ian Carpenter and Damian Noonan have taken on senior roles as part of Publicis Sapient’s Salesforce practice across Australia and New Zealand.
Nigel Vaz, Publicis Sapient CEO, said the addition of Tquila’s team and Salesforce capabilities will “bolster our ability to deliver end-to-end digital business transformation for our clients”.
“Tquila ANZ is a strategic acquisition which continues to build the foundation for our strong growth in the APAC [Asia Pacific] region and further expansion of our Salesforce partnership globally,” he said.
“Tquila ANZ will also benefit from Publicis Sapient’s competitive advantage in leveraging the world-class creative and media assets of Publicis Groupe.”
Cassidy meanwhile, added the acquisition will give Tquila’s clients access to Publicis Sapient’s scale.
"This acquisition gives our clients access to Publicis Sapient’s team of 20,000 professionals across 53 offices. This expanded capability will enable larger scale implementation projects for our client portfolio, as well as customer-orientated digital business transformation as a new offering," he said.
This is the latest acquisition for Publicis Sapient, with it acquiring Australian management consulting firm Third Horizon in March 2020 to accelerate the global firm’s digital transformation play in the local market.
