Softcat: MD-in-waiting won't make us "ugly"

Ex-Computacenter bigwig Colin Brown set to take Softcat's reins as Martin Hellawell eyes chairman role

Softcat is lining up former Computacenter Germany boss Colin Brown as its new managing director.

Brown will join the VAR on 1 November in the role of deputy managing director but is set to slide into the managing director seat within three to six months following a bedding-in period.

Brown worked at Computacenter at the same time as Softcat's current managing director, Martin Hellawell, who has helped grow Softcat into a £300-turnover outfit.

Hellawell (pictured) – who joined Softcat in 2006 – is planning to shimmy into the chairman slot recently vacated by Softcat founder Peter Kelly, but stressed he would very much retain an executive remit.

"I will be a hands-on chairman and am not going into semi-retirement," he told ChannelWeb. "But I could do with a bit of help running the company as we are a bit bigger than we were."

Brown last week handed in his notice at Microsoft, where he had been general manager of UK services for nearly four years. Before that, he spent more than a decade at Computacenter, latterly running its 1,000-strong German operation and before that heading its UK government business.

Hellawell described Brown as a "solid guy".

"Colin went to my former ‘school' at Computacenter," he explained. "He has a good business head and is pragmatic, but might just get this madness that is Softcat and will not try to make us too corporate or too ugly."