Applied AI developer RAVN Systems has this month appointed David Lumsden as the company’s Chief Strategy Officer (CSO).
Lumsden already had an advisory role at the London-based AI pioneer, acting as a part-time advisor to the company’s board. The new CSO role is expected to be fulltime, with Lumsden’s job clearly focused on helping to grow the business in new and existing markets.
The former legal tech company CEO clearly brings with him a wealth of knowledge and experience that RAVN will no doubt be leveraging as much as possible to expand the business in terms of new clients.
In a statement the company said: ‘David will be taking part in forming RAVN’s strategic initiatives to communicate, develop, execute and sustain their success within the markets they currently operate in, in addition to exploring new opportunities.’
According to his LinkedIn profile Lumsden started out in the tech sector as a business analyst at Wang (UK), then an important early computer developer whose parent company had launched in Massachusetts in the 1950s.
By 1992 he became CIO at Ashurst, then a law firm with only around 220 lawyers, at a time when many law firms did not even have a website and when partners were still uncomfortable using email.
Then in 1997 Lumsden moved to Tikit where he eventually became its CEO. Tikit is a provider of technology solutions and services to legal and professional service firms, such as document template systems. It is now part of the UK-based BT Group and sells its legal tech services to ‘90 of the UK’s top 100 law firms, 250 US firms and 12 of the top 20 European law firms’.
These previous client relationships may prove very useful to RAVN. Lumsden left Tikit after almost 16 years in 2013, around the time of BT’s takeover, but it is interesting to note that several of Tikit’s clients are also now among RAVN’s publicly acknowledged clients, including UK-based BLP and Danish law firm, Bech-Bruun.
Lumsden added in a statement: ‘RAVN are in an exciting stage of growth and innovation both with their existing Enterprise Search technology and their ground-breaking Artificial Intelligence offering.’
Lumsden also mentions on LinkedIn that he is ‘profit, growth and cash oriented,’ which must be a bonus for a fast-growing tech company.
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