Managing director, Lanway
Career so far Lanway, Lanway and Lanway. I started at the bottom of the corporate ladder 17 years ago earning £59 per week. I had a simple recipe back then: work hard, earn money and spend it on beer. The recipe has been a successful one for me as it seems I'm now nearer the top of the ladder. Seventeen years on, my passion for the job is unwavering. It's a great business and I take great pleasure in sharing in the team's successes on a daily basis.
What was your first job and were you any good at it? In my younger days, my parents and grandparents owned pubs and wine bars, so I used to get paid to do the bottling up - essentially just filling up the empty shelf and fridge spaces after people had had their fill the night before. Now I'm generally found on the other side of the bar.
Who was your top teenage pin-up? Dorian from Birds of a Feather. Yes, really.
My colleagues won't know this about me but... I have recently joined a band (www.facebook.com/roller) and my weekends are spent gigging in local pubs and music venues.
What is your favourite snack? I absolutely love a strong camembert cheese, with some good crackers, red grapes and red wine.
What has been your career high point to date? I suppose it has to be becoming managing director, which was always something I dreamed of becoming, but those of you in the same position will understand the term "be careful what you wish for". It's incredibly challenging at times, but very rewarding too.
Has 2013 been good, bad or ugly? It's been very positive. As a business we have gone through a lot of transformation, and relationships at the top have been somewhat strained through the transition over the last three years. However, we have sorted all of that, and the business is performing very well, with top and bottom line double digit growth YTD.
What do you say when asked at a party what you do for a living? I'm a keen taxidermist - it's a great ice-breaker.
If I wasn't working in the channel I would probably be... headlining Glasto.
What will be the channel's biggest challenge in 2014? It will be a huge year for the channel, with questions around the role of distribution and how they can add more value, questions around what happens to the traditional reseller model when cloud adoption continues to ramp up and businesses continue to use procurement channels such as Amazon to buy their client devices (some vendors appear to be using it as an RTM as opposed to the traditional distie/reseller model).
Also understanding the concept of ITaaS (the consumption of IT as a utility). Part of me feels like someone has thrown the cards in the air, and the channel is waiting for them to fall - not for Lanway though our biggest challenge will be to continue to grow our business. When you are in a flat market and you are growing, it means you are doing better than your competitors - which is something I'm keen on continuing.
