Pilot of Light Transport aircraft reported a temporary loss of aircraft control when encountering a strong updraft; resulting in significant altitude gain.

Narrative

On climb out of Scottsdale we were given 17;000 ft. as an altitude constraint. As we were climbing we went into a cloud layer. On coming out of the back side of the clouds we saw a developing cumulus/cumulonimbus (CB) cloud right in front of us. I was about to ask for a deviation when ATC told us to turn 30 degrees left. We were already too close and it was too late. We flew into the CB as we were turning. I noticed we were 300 ft. high (17;300) and called the deviation verbally. I looked away from the altimeter; then back at it and we were approaching 18;000 ft. and the VSI was pegged up. I've been in some fierce mountain wave and strong convective activity; but I've never seen anything like that. We came out of the cloud and started to return to altitude. ATC asked us what our altitude was and I told her we were at 18;000 and correcting to 17;000. She then issued us FL190 as an altitude. I also informed her of our updraft encounter. A few minutes later she asked us to categorize the updraft. I told her it was moderate to severe. Later in the flight the same Controller announced a Center weather advisory for the area we had just flown through.We detected the deviation right away. The updraft was so strong and happened so fast that we couldn't overcome it. High workload; task saturation and the beginning of spring flying weather. Contributing factor was the Pilot Flying's relative inexperience in the aircraft. He's on IOE. We began to correct to our assigned altitude and were then given a higher altitude; which we complied with. There is no suggestion I can make. This was a case of wrong place; wrong time and we got caught in a nasty updraft.