Managing director, APSU
Career so far I am an ex-IBMer who has been in the channel since 1993. I set up my own company, Notability Solutions in 1999, merging with Catalyst Solutions (my previous employer) in 2000. In 2003 I did an MBO raising venture capital funds to do so. In 2005 I sold the business to Logicalis and became managing director of Logicalis Computing Solutions. While there, we bougtht Hawke Systems and TBC to create a $100m+ computing business in the UK. I left at the end of 2006 and in 2007 invested in Assurit, a managed services business concentrating in the IBM power market. In 2011 we bought Apex Computers - a Cisco, HP and IBM reseller - merging it with Assurit to create APSU. I have also held a number of non-executive directorships in channel companies, including one based in India.
If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be? No-one. I am more than happy being myself.
What will next year's most overhyped industry buzzword be? The same as this year's - the cloud.
Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? It has been a good year. APSU has grown year on year in excess of 25 per cent from both a revenue and profit perspective. The outlook for the rest of 2012 is for more of the same.
What would you have as your last meal? Pizza.
What keeps you awake at night? Nothing. My wife would like me to be kept awake as she is always complaining about my snoring.
What piece of technology could you not be without? My Sonos home entertainment system.
Have any of your predictions come true this year? Yes, two. Harlequins won the Aviva Premiership and APSU overachieved on the budget we set.
What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? An IBM networking trip to Cape Town in 1998. My wife and I spent a week there, all expenses paid with IBM and a number of other channel partners.
What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2013? Channel partners who have traditionally sold product need to evolve in selling managed services of cloud-based offerings. The market for these offerings is growing at the expense of product sales, and if companies cannot change then they will be left behind.
