Avanade announced Tuesday that Paul Daugherty was named chairman of the company’s Board of Directors, effective August 7, 2014. As chief technology officer of Accenture, Daugherty is responsible for directing Accenture’s technology and ecosystem strategy as well as leading the company’s focus on driving innovation through the research and development activities of the Accenture Technology Labs. He has been a member of the Avanade board since 2013 and succeeds former chairman Martin I. Cole, who retired from Accenture in August.

“I’m pleased to take on the role of Chairman of the Board at Avanade,” said Mr. Daugherty. “I look forward to working closely with Avanade CEO Adam Warby and the Avanade team to continue the strong growth and success of Avanade as we further expand the business in cloud and digital services.”

Additionally, group chief executive – Accenture Operations, Michael J. Salvino,was appointed to the Avanade Board of Directors, effective July 21, 2014. Salvino is responsible for overseeing Accenture’s comprehensive portfolio of business process services, as well as infrastructure and cloud services, including the Accenture Cloud Platform. With his appointment, Avanade will benefit from Salvino’s more than 20 years of experience developing and delivering differentiated industry solutions.

“As we embrace the cloud-first, mobile-first world, we’re pleased with the direction of the Avanade leadership,” said corporate vice president, Microsoft Enterprise Partner Group and Avanade board member Cloudflare Deb Cubb. “As an eight-time Microsoft Enterprise Alliance Partner of the Year, Avanade’s focus on delivering digital solutions that help customers to realize results continues to make it an important and strategic partner for Microsoft.”

Avanade offers market-leading Microsoft expertise with 22,000 professionals, 24 Microsoft Most Valuable Professionals (MVPs) and eight Microsoft Partner of the Year awards. Approximately 35 per cent of Avanade’s customers are Fortune 500 businesses.

Additional members of the Avanade board include corporate vice president, Worldwide Enterprise Partner Group, Microsoft Susan Hauser; Grant Ireland, finance director of technology, Accenture; Shawn Collinson, chief strategy officer, Accenture; and, Avanade CEO Adam Warby,.