ADAPTOVATE appoints Jim Cundiff to boost North America

ADAPTOVATE has appointed Jim Cundiff as Managing Director and Partner, expanding the consulting firm's senior leadership in North America.

Cundiff joins with more than 20 years of experience in enterprise transformation and agile adoption. He previously helped found an early agile consulting firm and later became the first Chief Executive Officer and Managing Director of Scrum Alliance.

At Scrum Alliance, he established the organisation's operating and scaling model during its early growth. He later joined the executive ownership team at BigVisible Solutions, a boutique consultancy focused on strategy, change management and organisational design before its acquisition by a larger firm.

His career has spanned the private, public and non-profit sectors, with client work ranging from global enterprises and start-ups to government agencies and mission-driven organisations.

The appointment comes as ADAPTOVATE looks to expand its reach in financial services, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, energy, government and non-profit organisations. Cundiff will support growth initiatives tied to organisational structures, change management, workflow redesign and governance.

The hire also aligns with the firm's broader push into AI-related transformation work. ADAPTOVATE operates in more than 10 countries and has offices in Dallas, Los Angeles, Toronto, Europe and Asia-Pacific, with headquarters in Australia.

Paul McNamara, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of ADAPTOVATE, highlighted Cundiff's experience.

"Jim has been at the forefront of major enterprise transformation over the last 20 years," McNamara said.

"From agile to digital to cloud and now AI, he understands what it takes to drive true organizational change."

Agile roots

Cundiff is known in consulting and agile circles for his early work in the enterprise agility movement. His background spans the period when agile methods moved from software teams into broader business transformation programmes, a shift many consultancies later sought to turn into organisation-wide change mandates.

That experience appears central to ADAPTOVATE's decision to bring him into the partnership. He will help advise enterprises on how management structures and decision-making processes should evolve as companies seek returns from AI spending.

In his remarks, Cundiff compared the current AI wave with earlier corporate efforts around agile and digital transformation. He argued that technology investment alone does not deliver broad business gains without deeper organisational redesign.

"We've seen patterns with organizations adopting emerging technologies and new ways of working before," Cundiff said.

"Agile created a positive impact at the execution and delivery level but struggled to produce enterprise-level value when it hit the broader business. And digital transformation promises delivered mixed results. AI can be both a headwind and a tailwind; the organizations that succeed will be the ones that treat it as a leadership and business opportunity to solve. AI requires reconsidering workflows, reestablishing decision-making frameworks, and redesigning organizational structures. ADAPTOVATE gets that and has focused their in-market value proposition accordingly."

North America push

The hire also reflects ADAPTOVATE's effort to build its North American business. While the consultancy is headquartered in Australia, it has been expanding internationally, and Cundiff's appointment forms part of that investment.

Consulting firms across the market have been adding senior advisers with transformation and operating model experience as clients reassess large technology programmes. Companies that spent heavily on cloud, digital and automation are now under pressure to show clearer business outcomes from AI initiatives, especially in regulated industries and public sector settings.

That backdrop has increased demand for advisers who can link technology spending to changes in governance, workflows and organisational design. Cundiff's experience across commercial, government and non-profit work may help ADAPTOVATE appeal to a wider set of buyers in those areas.

His remit covers industries the firm sees as ready for major change, including finance, pharmaceuticals, healthcare, energy, government and non-profit organisations.