Modis Logo

Modis traces its roots to Jacksonville, Florida, where Delores Kessler founded Associated Temporary Staffing, or ATS, in 1978. The small medical staffing agency later became the base for a much larger staffing business. In 1992, ATS merged with three other staffing firms and took the name AccuStaff.

Under Derek Dewan, who became chief executive in 1994, AccuStaff went public and expanded quickly. In 1996, the acquisition of Career Horizons turned it into a billion-dollar company. In 1997, AccuStaff made 28 acquisitions in one year and reorganized its information technology services into a separate division called Modis.

The Modis name soon moved beyond a division. In 1998, AccuStaff sold its commercial unit, Strategix, and renamed the remaining business Modis Professional Services, even as a scandal involving Dewan damaged the company’s market value. In 2001, the parent company became MPS Group, while Modis Inc. remained its IT staffing and consulting brand, competing with larger players such as Manpower and Randstad by focusing more on technology roles.

In October 2009, Adecco Group acquired Modis from MPS Group and placed it inside its global staffing and consulting structure. During the 2010s, Modis worked in IT consulting, engineering outsourcing, project management, staffing, and team management for clients in the telecom, aerospace, automotive, and government sectors. In 2021, Adecco announced the €2 billion acquisition of AKKA Technologies, which was completed in 2022. AKKA and Modis were then merged into Akkodis, a digital engineering and Smart Industry consulting business with about 50,000 specialists and roughly €4 billion in revenue.