Nick Thomson of Workshare Joins iManage to lead RAVN AI Team

Nick Thomson, the former Chief Revenue Officer at Workshare has joined iManage as general manager to lead the iManage RAVN AI business.

Thomson said: ‘The opportunity to build and develop iManage RAVN is exciting, both in the near and long term. iManage RAVN powers iManage’s vision for AI augmented document management and is driving digital transformation across the wider professional services landscape. We are well-positioned to expand our global footprint and disrupt new markets with our broad set of practical AI solutions. I look forward to leading our dynamic, highly skilled team on this journey.’

Nick Thomson, general manager, iManage RAVN

Based in London, Thomson will drive growth of iManage RAVN by ‘bringing to market new and enhanced practical AI solutions that empower professionals to increase efficiency, improve productivity and mitigate risk’ the company said.

It’s a signifiant move as far as the legacy RAVN legal AI team is concerned as whichever direction Thomson takes them in will likely define their place in the much larger US company after a period of intense integration work since their merger.

Prior to the merger the market generally saw RAVN as providing plenty of bespoke solutions to complex legal data analysis challenges, a classic example was the SFO/Rolls Royce case. After the merger the main focus – understandably – has been to leverage this expertise to the advantage of the far wider iManage DMS client base.

What happens next we will soon see. Will RAVN have more of a distinct independent identity again? Will the group continue on the current post-merger path, but with more focus on AI solutions that are of use independent of the iManage suite?

Reading between the lines of Thomson’s statement it seems that the general plan is to keep with the main post-merger strategy, i.e. leverage AI for the use of the iManage clients and integrate it into the wider suite of iManage applications.

The bit about breaking into new markets is interesting. New geographies and even whole new areas of AI solutions that tap RAVN’s excellent NLP and ML expertise may be on the cards.