Areas of expertise
About
David Rickard is an outsourcing advisor based in Hampshire, UK, and MD of Advisory Services at The Knowledge Group. At Everest Group, he was a Partner covering customer experience management, trust and safety, and vendor management, and led the firm’s CXM PEAK Matrix assessments of global CX providers.
David judges delivery locations in person. After the Elevate Africa conference, he described Ethiopia as promising but not yet a mature CX market, and said a location can’t be understood from a slide deck or a video call.
On Central and Eastern Europe, he argues the region competes as a premium, multilingual nearshore hub built on knowledge-intensive talent.
Experience
MD, Advisory Services
The Knowledge Group · June 2026 – Present · Clanfield, United Kingdom
Partner
Everest Group · January 2023 – June 2026
Vice President
Everest Group · January 2021 – January 2023
Consulting Director
Ember Group · January 2019 – January 2021
Procurement & Outsourcing Consultant
Rickard Procurement Solutions · December 2017 – January 2019 · Clanfield, United Kingdom
Senior Procurement Director
Microsoft · March 2007 – December 2017 · Reading, United Kingdom
Practice Manager, Microsoft Premier Support
Microsoft · April 2002 – March 2007 · Reading, United Kingdom
Technical Account Manager
Microsoft · July 2000 – April 2002 · Reading, United Kingdom
Speaking
Outsourcing to Central and Eastern Europe: A Data-Informed Review
Simply Contact Webinar