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Deep research brief for the LATAM nearshore staffing opportunity. Everything you need to know before the meeting.
Keith Cutcliffe is the Director of Business Technology at AWC, Inc., an employee-owned industrial automation company headquartered in Baton Rouge, LA with ~$275M revenue and 600+ employee-owners across 32 offices in 11 states.
Keith joined AWC in November 2024 and is based in Birmingham, Alabama (remote from HQ). He's a CTO-minded leader with deep .NET/Azure/DevOps experience who has consistently managed offshore and consulting resources throughout his career — he's bought nearshore/offshore before and knows the model well.
Builder/Fixer — Repeatedly brought in to modernize legacy systems, restructure teams, and clean up technical debt.
Process-Oriented — Champions SDLC, DevOps, Agile methodology, change management at every role.
People Developer — Creates career progression paths, mentors teams, restructures departments for growth.
Budget-Conscious — Managed $1.2M+ consulting budgets, negotiated rate caps, focused on cost reduction.
Pragmatic Innovator — Balances innovation with compliance (FDA 21 CFR Part 11, enterprise governance).
Baton Rouge, LA (remote from Birmingham, AL)
Brand new role — likely building out the business technology function for this $275M industrial automation company. Given AWC's focus on automation & controls, he's probably modernizing internal business systems (ERP, CRM, portals, integrations).
Johnson City, TN · Global central laboratory services for clinical trials (pharma)
Greater Atlanta Area · Telecom · 18-person team
Birmingham, AL
Birmingham, AL · Insurance
AWC is the authorized local sales, support, and service partner to many of the world's most trusted automation and control systems brands. They are a value-added distributor, systems integrator, and services company — not a manufacturer. HQ at 6655 Exchequer Dr, Baton Rouge, LA 70809.
Employee-owned (ESOP) = long-term thinking, invest in people, cost-conscious but quality-focused. Tagline: "Passionate People Winning Together." Growing ~3% YoY headcount. Reviews: 3.7/5 work-life balance, 4.1/5 pay & benefits.
| Signal | Evidence |
|---|---|
| ✓ Has bought offshore before | Managed $1.2M+ annual offshore/onsite consulting budget at Fusion Connect |
| ✓ Structured offshore teams | "Added leads to oversee offshore staff" at Fusion Connect |
| ✓ Led remote/offshore devs | Led "remote and offshore developers" at Protective Life on $2M+ project |
| ✓ Manages vendors/consultants | "Manage multiple vendors and consultants" — LabConnect, every role |
| ✓ Budget authority | "Oversee annual budget requests" — controls the purse strings |
| ✓ New in role — building | Only 1.5 years at AWC — still shaping his team and strategy |
| ✓ CTO-minded builder | Wants to build, modernize, and scale — needs talent to execute |
| ✓ Cost-conscious | History of reducing costs, negotiating rate caps, finding efficiencies |
"I saw you just hit your stride at AWC after a year and a half — how's the technology transformation going in the industrial automation space?"
"Your background modernizing enterprise systems at LabConnect and Fusion Connect is fascinating — are you bringing a similar DevOps and API-first approach to AWC?"
"I noticed AWC is employee-owned — how does that affect how you invest in technology and build teams?"
"How are you staffing your dev team at AWC? Are you building internally or using consultants?"
"At Fusion Connect you managed a $1.2M offshore budget — are you looking at a similar model for AWC?"
"With 32 offices across 11 states, I imagine there are integration challenges across locations?"
"AWC talks about IT/OT convergence — is that driving new application development?"
"What's on your modernization roadmap for the next 12–18 months?"
"We specialize in LATAM .NET/Azure/DevOps engineers — exactly your tech stack."
"Same timezone, 40–50% cost savings vs US, no offshore management headaches."
"We can plug in senior developers who've worked in industrial/manufacturing environments."
"Our model includes embedded leads to manage the team — similar to how you structured offshore teams at Fusion Connect."
"Employee-owned culture matches well with dedicated LATAM teams who become part of your organization."
Don't compare him to a "typical IT buyer" — he's technical and hands-on.
Don't oversell AI buzzwords — he puts it in his title but his track record is practical/pragmatic.
Don't assume huge budget yet — he's likely still building the business case at AWC.
Don't talk down about offshore — he's used it successfully. Position LATAM as the better version.