Arrow ECS virtualisation boss leaves to join VAR

Raj Mehta unveiled as chairman of virtualisation VAR b2Lateral

Raj Mehta has left Arrow ECS three years after Centia acquisition

Arrow ECS’s virtualisation head, Raj Mehta, has left the distributor to begin work with London-based VAR b2Lateral.

Mehta has been a divisional director at Arrow ECS since his Citrix and VMware distributor, Centia, was acquired by the firm in 2007. On 1 November, he became chairman of b2Lateral, which has 24 staff and works with Citrix, VMware, Microsoft, HP and Novell.

Talking to ChannelWeb, Mehta said: “I was at Arrow for three years. It has been a great company to work for but I wanted to move on to something more challenging.”

Mehta said that b2Lateral, which specialises in cloud, managed services and desktop virtualisation, plans to double its consultant headcount over the next year.

“B2Lateral has been one of the industry’s best-kept secrets,” he said. “The brand hasn’t been there and me coming on board will hopefully help with that."

Mehta says he brought Citrix to Europe in 1992 with his firm KNS Distribution, which later became Futerlink before being rebranded as Centia as the firm's ownership changed hands.