Dive Brief:
- IT services platform Shield Technology Partners hired former Palantir Technologies CIO Jim Siders as its CEO, pairing Siders’ operational knowledge with Shield’s AI-focused service delivery model.
- Sider started as a level one helpdesk engineer at Palantir in 2013 before eventually ascending to head of IT. His firsthand IT support knowledge and his experience with a federated data structure made him an attractive target for Shield, the company said in the announcement.
- Siders will support the seven managed service provider businesses that operate within the Shield platform. “Our core principle is that scale should enable autonomy and not erase it. We designed our platform for IT services owners that want to continue growing their business without sacrificing the qualities that make them unique — local leadership, culture, and brand,” Head of Strategy and Growth Raghav Kotha told Channel Dive in an email.
Dive Insight:
Shield is banking that its portfolio companies will use its AI-based products to enhance their customer support.
Earlier this month, OpenAI bought a stake in the Shield’s Thrive Capital-run holding company, saying it would “drive direct, scalable impact across core enterprise operations.” Kotha said Shield’s internal AI tools free up IT engineers to work directly with customers.
“The industry is at a true inflection point. Frontier AI models are showing incredible promise, but adoption has yet to meaningfully diffuse beyond large enterprises,” Kotha said. “For IT services providers serving SMBs, that gap represents a once in a generation opportunity. Shield is uniquely positioned to take advantage of it, and Jim is joining to help accelerate a strategy that has been underway since our launch.”
Omdia Principal Analyst Jessica Davis said Siders’ experience at Palantir reinforces the company’s emphasis on AI.
“Palantir’s reputation as a leader in AI-driven solutions for enterprise and government markets lends Shield additional leadership credibility relative to other emerging AI-enabled IT services platforms,” Davis told Channel Dive in a message.
AI has forced MSPs to rethink their value propositions, particularly in IT help desk services considered core to the model.
“AI is rewriting the economics of service delivery at the exact time IT service providers are rethinking how they operate," Siders said in the announcement.
Davis noted, however, that Siders comes from enterprise IT, not the MSP market. She said Siders needs to lean on the industry knowledge of the MSP operators in Shield’s portfolio.
“The delivery model, economics, and customer relationships are materially different,” she said. “As Shield continues to position itself around MSP enablement, an open question is whether and how the company may eventually broaden its scope toward direct IT services.”
