Written by Lilia Guan
Published in ARN 1 July 2026
(Also published in ITBrief)
APAC AI and data consultancy firm V2 AI has added four senior executive appointments due to demand from enterprise customers for AI strategy, engineering and industrial-scale delivery services.
V2 has added Clare Cranston as general manager consulting; Millicent McCutcheon as partner; Gulnnar Grover as director, data and AI; and Dwayne Helena as director of AI engineering, reflecting a fivefold increase in customer demand in these areas in recent months.
V2 AI Founder and CEO Craig Howe said the appointments further strengthen the firm’s ability to support clients across every stage of their AI journey.
“As we enter our next phase of growth, we’re investing in exceptional leaders who bring deep consulting, engineering, data, cloud and commercial expertise.“Clare, Millicent, Gulnnar and Dwayne significantly strengthen our ability to help clients build AI capability that is secure, scalable and delivers measurable business value,” concluded Howe. Collectively, their experience aligns with V2 AI’s focus on strengthening its enterprise consulting capabilities and meeting growing regional demand.
Clare Cranston, for instance, brings more than 20 years of experience leading consulting, customer success and delivery teams across Australia and the Asia-Pacific region. Prior to joining V2 AI, Cranston held senior leadership roles at Cognizant, including head of delivery and strategy, as well as industry lead for public sector and health.She has also held executive positions at Contino, Logicalis, Optus, Interactive and IBM, where she built a reputation for delivering complex transformation programs.
At V2 AI, Cranston will lead the firm’s consulting practice, focusing on scaling delivery excellence, strengthening the company’s squad-based delivery model.“Clients increasingly need partners who can move from AI strategy to enterprise-scale delivery, and I’m excited to help grow that capability at V2 AI,” she said. While Millicent McCutcheon brings extensive enterprise AI transformation experience gained from her time at Amazon Web Services and Dropbox.
Further strengthening V2 AI’s capabilities, Gulnnar Grover brings more than a decade of experience leading business, data and AI transformation across consulting, product, engineering and enterprise delivery.
“Successful AI starts with trusted data, strong governance and a relentless focus on business outcomes,” he said.
To help clients embed AI into modern engineering practices and deliver scalable, production-ready outcomes, Dwayne Helena brings more than 25 years’ experience leading engineering transformation across banking, financial services and consulting.
“I joined V2 AI because it sits at the intersection of two areas, I’m most passionate about: engineering transformation and enterprise AI adoption,” said Helena. “The future of software engineering will be AI-enabled, and enterprises need modern engineering practices to realise its full potential.”
The appointments mark V2 AI’s continued investment, as it continues to expand its footprint across Australia and the broader Asia-Pacific region. This comes off the back of V2 AI recently being appointed a key implementation partner in Anthropic’s newly launched Claude Partner Network.
It also works closely with strategic partners including AWS, DataBricks, Google Cloud and OpenAI to support enterprises in implementing AI securely.
