Code and Theory hires AI tech leaders for enterprise

Code and Theory has hired Deepthi Reddy Sanikommu and Dave Thomas to senior technology leadership roles, expanding the agency's leadership across enterprise platforms and AI-related engineering.

Sanikommu joins as group director, enterprise platforms, and Thomas as group director of technology. Their remit includes Adobe-focused enterprise platform work and engineering for The Machine, Stagwell's agentic operating system for marketing.

The hires come as agencies and consultancies position themselves around rising corporate demand for AI tools and broader digital transformation programmes. Code and Theory said the two executives would help clients turn that demand into operating systems, platform delivery and product development.

Sanikommu will lead the company's global enterprise platforms discipline, including expanding architecture and delivery across its Adobe practice and contributing to AI-enabled transformation work for clients.

Her background spans more than two decades in technology leadership across consulting and enterprise organisations in Australia and India. She previously held roles at Accenture, EY and Merkle, where her work included large digital transformation programmes and customer experience platform modernisation.

Thomas will lead engineering for The Machine, with a focus on agentic workflow orchestration, semantic search and AI-driven optimisation.

Before joining Code and Theory, Thomas held senior engineering and AI leadership roles at Upside. He also led product and engineering teams at Meta, Indeed, Xpanse, SolarWinds and several venture-backed start-ups.

The appointments bring in senior technology executives from large consulting and consumer technology groups at a time when many agency networks are trying to deepen their engineering and software credentials. For Code and Theory, the move also strengthens ties between its client services work and Stagwell's broader technology efforts.

Code and Theory describes its operating model as an even split between creative and engineering staff. It said that structure has underpinned its work over 25 years as it moves further into product, platform and AI systems development.

David DiCamillo, chief technology officer at Code and Theory, outlined the reasoning behind the hires.

"Deepthi and Dave are the kind of leaders who raise the ceiling for what our organization can deliver globally, at enterprise scale and with real momentum in AI. Deepthi brings deep platform and transformation leadership across the Adobe ecosystem and Dave brings rare experience building AI-powered systems and products. Together, they strengthen our ability to help clients modernize the systems that power experience, performance and decision-making," DiCamillo said.

Sanikommu's role places particular emphasis on enterprise platform work, an area where brands continue to invest as they update customer-facing systems and internal architecture. Adobe-related deployments remain a significant part of that market for agencies and technology advisers with implementation expertise.

Her comments pointed to the practical demands companies face when trying to adapt large systems quickly.

"Enterprise transformation is only real when it shows up in the platforms people use every day and when teams can evolve those platforms as fast as customers evolve. Code and Theory brings experience, engineering and AI together in a way that's built to deliver. My focus is on building a global Enterprise Platforms capability that combines strong engineering, modern architecture and AI to help clients modernize faster, simplify complex ecosystems and deliver measurable business outcomes," Sanikommu said.

Thomas's brief centres on The Machine, which Stagwell has positioned as a marketing operating system built around agentic workflows. That reflects a broader push by marketing groups to build internal technology products that can support campaign operations, knowledge retrieval and decision support across client accounts.

His experience spans software architecture, product development and AI strategy, giving Code and Theory a senior executive with a background in both enterprise software and consumer internet platforms. Those skills are increasingly in demand as agencies look beyond creative and media work to systems integration and software-led service lines.

"The next competitive advantage won't be who has access to AI. It will be who redesigns their operating model around it. The Machine is built to help enterprises make that transition, turning agentic capability into a practical system that improves speed, quality and decision-making," Thomas said.