Calyx lines up management team

VAR finishes furnishing its board and prepares for growth in 2014

Calyx Managed Services' chief has been busy recruiting a new board of directors to steer the company into its next growth phase.

Steve Clark (pictured), who joined the firm from Azzurri last July, told CRN the board is now in place and the firm is eyeing a £35m turnover and 10 per cent EBITDA goal in the next three years.

The Better Capital-backed firm has seen a whirlwind of executive activity over the past year, particularly in the sales director role.

Clive Hallam, who was brought on board as sales director last December after the departure of predecessor Dave Everest, has now left the firm and been replaced by former Excell Group sales director Terry Williamson.

Clark has also brought some of his former Azzurri stablemates over to Calyx, with Tim Darbyshire joining as finance director at the beginning of the year, and Steve Catlow taking on the operations director role in February.

The most recent recruit is chief technology officer Jamie Marshall, who joined Calyx last month after stints at rivals Kelway and Equanet.

Speaking to CRN, Clark said: "We are now there with the management team. This year has been a year of investment in terms of people and also in systems, and we have just published our accounts."

He admitted that revenue is down, but is confident of the firm's three-year plan for growth, particularly in the virtualisation space.

"We have done really well with vendors such as Brocade and Juniper, increasing sales with them, and we plan to add peripheral vendors to our partner stable. We are not changing our strategy, but we are as confident as we can be and are seeing a more positive attitude [from customers]."

He said Calyx's strategy of partnering with larger SI players such as Cap-Gemini and Atos is playing dividends, particularly when winning public sector business.

"Because of our capability and size, we are seeing real success in this space around the support and maintenance side of the business," he said.

Clark added that the firm is in a strong position, with 85 per cent of the business being recurring revenue.

"Most of our business - around 80 per cent - comes from services and support, with 20 per cent project based and hardware," he said, adding that the firm is seeing particular success in the private cloud space.

"We are getting there," he added.