Former Home Office Finance Director Appointed As Joint MD of Aareon UK and 1st Touch

Nigel Rees has been appointed as Joint UK MD of Aareon (www.aareon.co.uk) and 1st Touch (www.1sttouch.com), a role he will share with current Aareon MD Steve Makin. In his new role, Rees will seek to exploit and drive the significant benefits available from the close collaboration between the two Aareon Group companies in the social housing technology marketplace.

Rees, who qualified as a Chartered Accountant with KPMG, joins from The Home Office, where for over 18 months as a Director of Finance, supported the digital transformation of the public sector. Prior to this, he worked for over 4 years as MD of Kelvin Connect a mobile and digital transformation solutions innovator with an impressive client list including Surrey Police. Previously, Rees also held a number of senior operational and financial roles in the retail and wholesale sectors.

Commenting on his appointment, Aareon’s Steve Makin noted, “Nigel brings with him an unrivalled level of experience in Digital Transformation and Mobile technology at the highest level. The clarity of vision he has gained by working on digital transformation projects within the public sector is unrivalled and will certainly prove to be invaluable. And with the tremendous market success that we are currently enjoying, his appointment to our management team is extremely timely and I look forward to working closely with him.”

Former 1st Touch MD Greg Johns, recently promoted to spearhead Group Product Strategy at the Aareon Group, welcomed Nigel Rees to the role, noting; “With 1st Touch increasingly becoming the digital development arm of the Aareon Group, the benefits of closer collaboration and fusion are clear. Nigel has exactly the right skill sets to spearhead this integration and I welcome him aboard.”

For his part, Nigel Rees welcomed Steve and Greg‘s comments adding, “It’s an incredibly exciting time to be joining. Both Aareon and 1st Touch are class leaders and with our excellent product pipeline and development investment, we are ideally placed to secure our position as the market leading vendor. I look forward to making a start and heading an extremely successful team of people who have an immense understanding of the market and our customers.”