Lynette Slater

Lynette Slater became chief executive of de Novo Solutions, a Newport-based Oracle and ServiceNow partner, on 17 September 2026. She took over from founder Mark Sweeny, who became executive chairman. De Novo has 150 staff and implements Oracle Cloud and ServiceNow for central and local government, police, education and private sector clients.

From insurance software to Oracle

Slater comes to de Novo from insurance, financial services and software. De Novo says she has more than 30 years in those sectors. Most recently she was client services director at ICE Tech, part of the Acturis Group, where de Novo says she grew professional services revenue to £13m in 2025. Earlier she led transformation and international expansion programs at Allianz, including turning a UK offshore operation into a global delivery model.

She has promised continuity. “Together, we can build on what is already working and take the business into its next stage with confidence,” she said when her appointment was announced.

A founder hands over

Sweeny founded de Novo in 2021 after selling his previous company, Certus Solutions, to Accenture in 2018, as reported by IT Channel Oxygen. The firm now displays a Sunday Times Hundred 2026 badge, and Oxygen ranked it among the fastest-growing UK channel partners by headcount in 2026. Sweeny told BusinessCloud he would not be “walking off into the sunset” just yet.

The same announcement reshaped the top team. Tracy Stephenson became chief financial officer, Alex Alexandru chief operating officer for consulting, Helen Crisostomo chief commercial officer and Tara Dewar chief operating officer for business process outsourcing (BPO) and support services. Sweeny wrote on LinkedIn that Slater would lead a “predominantly female executive team”, which he said “remains rare in our sector”, as reported by IT Channel Oxygen.

Why it matters to the channel

Founder-led partners across the channel face the same succession question sooner or later. De Novo has answered it with an outside chief executive, a reshaped executive team and a founder who stays on as executive chairman.

Slater brings a record of building a professional services business to one of the UK channel’s fastest-growing partners, and takes it into its next stage with a new leadership team around her.