Shield Technology Partners Names Former Palantir CIO Jim Siders As CEO

‘AI is rewriting the economics of service delivery at the exact time IT service providers are rethinking how they operate. Shield is this incredible combination of long-term vision, technological expertise and operational know-how. We have lightning in a bottle,’ says Jim Siders, Shield Technology Partners’ new CEO.

Shield Technology Partners has tapped longtime Palantir executive Jim Siders as its new CEO, the company said Monday, betting on deep enterprise IT and AI experience to accelerate the growth of its national IT services platform.

Siders joins Shield after spending more than a dozen years at Palantir, most recently as CIO. He began his career at the AI and data analytics company as an IT help-desk engineer and went on to lead global IT operations, infrastructure and business applications during a period of rapid expansion that saw Palantir surpass $4 billion in annual revenue. In that role, he helped design a federated IT model that more closely aligned technology and data workflows with business outcomes.

“AI is rewriting the economics of service delivery at the exact time IT service providers are rethinking how they operate,” Siders said in a statement. “Shield is this incredible combination of long-term vision, technological expertise and operational know-how. We have lightning in a bottle.”

[Related: Shield Technology Partners Co-Founder: We’re Looking For MSPs That Seek ‘A Partnership More Than A Sale’]

New York–based Shield is the provider of an IT services platform focused on combining frontier AI, product and engineering capabilities with operational and M&A expertise. The company partners with founder-led IT providers that want to maintain their local brand and culture while gaining access to capital, talent and advanced technology.

Shield has grown to seven partner companies nationwide, collectively serving more than 1,500 customers across industries such as construction, energy and health care.

In partnership with Thrive Holdings and OpenAI, Shield has also launched two internal AI-driven products, Sentinel and Spectre, aimed at transforming how IT providers serve customers. The tools are designed to help triage and automatically resolve repetitive support tickets, freeing engineers to focus on higher-value work.

“Jim has been one of the early advocates for getting engineers to work directly alongside their customers,” Anuj Mehndiratta, a member of the Thrive Holdings founding team, said in a statement. “He has been in the shoes of our partners and understands intuitively what their customers want.”

With Siders at the helm, Shield is looking to focus on integrating AI into managed services operations as solution providers confront rising customer expectations, talent shortages and pressure to operate more efficiently.