Specialist tech company appoints new CEO with an eye on business growth

Sewell Estates has announced Claire Harrison as the new CEO of Parallel Data Intelligence Limited.

Claire Harrison

Sewell Estates invested in Parallel alongside its public sector partner Community Health Partnerships in November 2020, after utilising its mapping tool on behalf of NHS and local authority customers.

Parallel supports public sector clients across England to make decisions about their services, estates and budgets through the delivery of a market leading web application, SHAPE (Strategic Health Asset Planning and Evaluation), which specialises in interactive mapping and data visualisation.

With the recent appointment of a new Chief Executive, and a demonstratable increase in application users, the business is now looking to grow its team, taking the business and its product to the next level by recruiting a new Front End Developer, following the recent appointment of a Data Project Lead.

Claire has been with Sewell Group for 10 years, where she began her journey leading the Communications team and by the age of 35 became an integral part of the Senior Leadership team.

As Project Director, Claire has been one of the driving forces behind securing planning permission for the £200m Yorkshire Energy Park and brings a wealth of knowledge from within both the public and private sector. Claire said;

“Parallel has one simple ethos; to improve the health of the population, so to be given the opportunity to become the CEO of a forward-thinking tech business of this nature with such a powerful mapping tool at its disposal is a very exciting prospect.

“Parallel has so much potential to grow and develop by continuing to support the public sector’s agenda. The information that we map plays a critical role in the decision-making process for NHS bodies across the country.

“The new developer will join a small but growing team to modernise and upgrade existing web applications, whilst developing new solutions to support customer content needs all to support the wider business’ growth aspirations.”

In her new leadership role, Claire will drive the business forward so that the developer team can focus on what they do best: enhancing the product to ensure it is positioned as a market leader.

With Claire’s background in marketing, business development and leading on some of the Group’s most complex projects, she brings a broad range of business experience to help grow the business.

Jo Barnes, Sewell Estates MD added;

“Before we acquired Parallel, there were already real synergies in what we do with estates analysis and service delivery data.

“Parallel was a strategic investment for us, giving us the extra strength and depth in problem-solving analysis to provide our public sector customers with even more robust, evidence-based information for estates and service planning.

“Sewell Estates has an ambition to continue to grow, finding new and creative ways to support our customers and this investment really fits the bill.

“Claire as CEO will help us to bring a fresh new perspective to Parallel, how we position it within such a niche sector and how we continue to meet (and exceed) our customers’ needs.

“We welcome Claire’s expertise, energy, ability to challenge and think outside the box as we look ahead to shaping Parallel’s future in such a dynamic sector.”

The business has the backing of the Sunday Times ‘Top 100 Best Companies to Work For’, Sewell Group, who’s Estates division is made up of Sewell Investments, Sewell Construction, Sewell Facilities Management, Illingworth and Gregory and Shared Agenda.