Softcat's Martin Hellawell: 'I do miss the buzz'

The ex-CEO opens up to CRN about his new roles and what he has got up to since stepping down as chief exec

Former Softcat CEO Martin Hellawell has kept himself busy since he stepped down from the role in April last year, joining the boards of two tech companies in the past month.

He was named in early August as chairman of Raspberry Pi Trading, a commercial subsidiary of the Raspberry Pi Foundation which promotes computer science in schools, and as non-executive director of games developer Team17 earlier this month.

These are additional to his role as chairman of Softcat, which he stepped into when he departed as CEO after 11 years heading the company. In that time he oversaw the VAR undergo an IPO and saw revenue grow from £57m to £672m.

Hellawell told CRN that he was attracted to Raspberry Pi and Team17 because of how different they were to Softcat.

"I wanted to do a few non-exec positions to get a taste of different sectors of the market and different people and give something back in helping other companies develop," he explained.

"Most of my trusted advisers said ‘don't rush into anything, give Softcat a full year exclusively just to learn the ropes of being a non-exec', which is very different to being an exec.

"Around April, I started looking properly into other non-exec positions and you do have to work at that; I can't say there has been a queue of people asking for my services. It means I have to put myself out there.

"But by doing that, I then got a number of offers and the two that took my fancy are very different from Softcat.

"I'm not exclusively interested in tech, but I like tech business, I like the pace of tech businesses and both Raspberry Pi and Team17 are in the industry, but in very different parts of it to Softcat so there's no conflict there."

He called the experience of seeking out new companies as "humbling".

"I have a good network of people who've always been ahead of me in the game or a few years older than me. So I went to them for advice and they said 'unless you tell people you want to do this stuff, they probably won't come to you'. And so I wrote my CV for the first time in 25 years," he said.

The philanthropic arm of Raspberry Pi attracted him to the company, and he hopes his involvement can help the growth of its commercial business.

Though not a gamer, the constant evolution of that industry piqued Hellawell's interest, as well as ticking the box of allowing him to work with an AIM-listed company - something he has not done before.

The channel veteran has been enjoying his slower pace of life, which has allowed him to complete personal projects that have been in gestation for years and he is gearing up to launch an event with the National Autistic Society to help adults with autism enter the workforce.

Despite keeping numerous balls in the year, Hellawell admitted he does miss being among the hurly-burly of the channel.

"I have no regrets [about stepping down] whatsoever. Graham [Watt, current CEO] has done a wonderful job at Softcat and has done a good job of managing me to the right level and enthusing me," he said.

"I had fantastic runs at Softcat and Computacenter. But when you're in there amongst it, it's hard to enjoy or appreciate what you've got, because you're so stressed and so busy and you've got so much on your plate.

"When you look back at it, though, you think ‘Wow, that was fantastic!', so you do miss it and I miss the people.

"I meet people all the time, but they're not my people, my team. I really miss the buzz and being involved in the day-to-day runnings."