JOSIAH
MEURER

A Cloud Consigliere is a trusted, independent technology advisor who guides organizations through their cloud journey — not just as a vendor or implementer, but as a strategic confidant. The title came from a client who couldn't formally engage me due to internal politics, but valued my perspective enough to keep me involved as their advisor and trusted second opinion. A Consigliere bridges the gap between technical capability, business strategy, and operational reality — helping leadership make confident decisions and helping technical teams execute them well.

Complex and regulated environments require a fundamentally different approach than standard migrations. Before any technical work begins, I focus on understanding the organization's risk profile, compliance requirements, operational constraints, and business objectives. From there, I work across three dimensions simultaneously: technical (architecture, security, integration), business (ROI, licensing, change management), and operational (runbooks, support models, governance). Having guided 500+ projects across financial services, healthcare, government, and other regulated industries, I know where the hidden complexity lives — and how to navigate it without surprises.

A consultant typically delivers a defined scope of work — an assessment, a migration, an implementation. An advisor has a broader, ongoing relationship with an organization, helping leadership navigate decisions, evaluate vendors, review work, and course-correct when needed. Many organizations benefit from both: a consulting partner to do the hands-on work, and a trusted advisor to ensure that work is being scoped, reviewed, and executed in the organization's best interests. The Cloud Consigliere role is primarily the latter — a strategic advisor who speaks both the language of the boardroom and the data center.

Managed services decisions are among the most consequential an IT organization can make — the wrong choice affects costs, capabilities, and culture for years. My approach starts with clarifying what the organization actually needs from a managed services relationship versus what they should own internally. From there I help evaluate providers, structure agreements, define SLAs, and build the governance model for long-term success. For consulting firms looking to build or grow a managed services practice, I bring direct experience having built and scaled MSP practices from the ground up at multiple firms.

My experience spans a wide range of industries and organizational sizes — from ambitious mid-market companies making their first serious cloud investments to large enterprises managing complex multi-cloud environments. Industries include financial services, healthcare, legal, government, manufacturing, and professional services, with particular depth in highly regulated environments where security, compliance, and operational requirements are non-negotiable. Currently, as Sr. Account Technology Strategist at Microsoft, I work with some of the largest and most complex enterprise organizations globally.

Vendors and partners — even excellent ones — have inherent incentives tied to their own products, services, and revenue targets. An independent advisor's only incentive is your success. I can tell you honestly when the Microsoft solution is the right answer, when a third-party tool is better, when you don't need what a partner is proposing, and when a project is being scoped in a way that doesn't serve your interests. After 20+ years working both inside the partner ecosystem and as an independent advisor, I understand both perspectives — and I bring that insight to every engagement on behalf of my clients.