Crown Hosting is delighted to announce the recent appointment of Jason Liggins in the position of CEO. In addition to bringing a wealth of technical knowledge and experience to the role, Jason’s experience of Ark and Crown Hosting spans over a decade.

Jason’s first exposure to Ark was as the lead hosting enterprise architect for the UK Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Tasked with consolidating the back office IT of eleven data centres into two using private cloud infrastructures, Ark bid for and subsequently won the contract for the two data centres.

Jason says; “I remember being really impressed with the ingenuity behind Ark’s technology, but it was their progressive approach to social responsibility that was particularly impressive.”

Jason liked the innovation and forward-thinking of Ark so much that he joined in 2014 as their CTO and was instrumental in winning the Crown Hosting contract, awarded by the Cabinet Office in 2015. Alongside his role as Ark’s CTO, Jason also simultaneously served as CIO to Crown Hosting Data Centres Ltd.

In 2020, Jason left to become a consultant to the Cabinet Office and Crown Commercial Service (within the Crown Hosting Framework Authority) to assist with the steering of central government’s aims towards a public cloud future, using Crown Hosting as a bridging step from traditional IT services. This led to changes in the UK Government’s Cloud First Policy and the award of the Crown Hosting II Contract (RM6262).

“I’m very proud of what Crown Hosting has achieved. I’d like to thank Steve Hall personally for the exceptional job he has done to bring us this far and wish him the very best in his new role. Personally, I’ve been a part of the journey since the beginning and I’m incredibly passionate about the part we play in energy and carbon reduction. I’m equally proud that since 2016, we have saved the taxpayer over £1 billion every year and I would like to increase this annual figure.”

The recent changes to the Cloud First Policy also inspired Jason’s decision to take the role of CEO. “I want to make hay, but it takes time for these types of changes to bed in with the public sector and for awareness to build. I would like to use my role to make even greater inroads into the digital transformation of public sector IT.”

Jason acknowledges that despite the proven cost saving and sustainability benefits of using Crown Hosting, change remains the biggest obstacle. He noted that although it has been over a decade since the UK Government created a directive for all public services to transition their services to the public cloud, the reality today is that it has proven too complex for many organisations.

“Hyperscale public cloud is shared by every organisation, public or private, and the income the cloud vendor receives drives an R&D programme unattainable by any single organisation on their own. For this reason alone, the benefits of public cloud are unquestionable. However, for organisations transitioning business processes and applications that have been in use for many years, the complexity of a single step digital transformation can prove too much. This is rarely purely a technical problem, but it is where Crown Hosting can help, providing the intermediate baby steps that enable the change. This might be through facilitation of technology, but it definitely releases money through cost savings that in turn, pay for the option to pivot. When you then factor in the cost, energy and carbon savings, it becomes a very compelling argument for change; but awareness is still much lower than it should be and we must continue to work hard as a team to increase that for the benefit of the public sector.”

Jason’s work with Crown Hosting over the last decade as a customer, partner, employee and advisor means he can comfortably sit in the seat of the customers that he is hoping to serve.

“Clearly, I know the value that Crown can bring to the table, but I have also been in the shoes of our customers and faced many of the same challenges, so I can help to bridge that gap. There is still much work to do, but I have a great team and I’m both proud and delighted to be playing my part in helping make even greater inroads into the digital transformation of the public sector.”

 

About Crown Hosting

Crown Hosting provides the rooms, buildings, facilities management and associated services for the IT of the public sector. Crown Hosting Data Centres Ltd is a unique joint venture, between the Cabinet Office and Ark Data Centres Ltd, providing value for money and environmentally efficient data centre colocation to the UK’s public sector.

Combined, we bring the UK Government assurance, integrity and capabilities of the public sector, unified with the speed of execution and flexibility of the private sector.

Our partnership empowers the UK Government aspiration for ‘Cloud Appropriate Digital Transformation,’ regardless of the size of organisation or where you are on your journey.

We offer all public sector organisations the same foundation to create and inspire change, opportunities to transform, move forward, consolidate infrastructure and migrate to new platforms using a more efficient and cost-effective model.

For more information please visit: https://crownhostingdc.co.uk

Please send all press related enquiries to lee.harris@arkdatacentres.co.uk