Insight's new UK boss on supply shortages, Brexit and boot camp training

Darren Hedley took over as UK managing director in October

Insight is well positioned to cope with Brexit disruption as negotiations over a trade deal go down to the wire, new UK managing director has told CRN.

Darren Hedley was named as successor to Emma de Sousa in July and officially started in the role in October.

De Sousa will take on the role of EMEA president in January.

Hedley said that Insight's scale across Europe means it is well equipped for whatever the outcome may be.

"We've got Brexit coming and obviously we've not got a crystal ball, but my personal view is that there is not going to be a lot of positive news coming for businesses, certainly not in January," Hedley said.

"So our objectives have been making sure we have plans in place and the agility to respond to that.

"On Brexit in particular, and with the stock restraints in the channel, it's about making sure we're working with distribution and our logistics footprint.

"From a global perspective, we know we can help customers through our global footprint, so we can transact with customers to transact locally and avoid some of those export unknowns.

"So, like a lot of people, we're building that ability to flex."

Hedley joined Insight from HPE in February 2017 as sales director for public sector, a role he also held at Kelway before it was acquired by CDW.

He was quickly selected for a development programme at Insight, part of which entailed a boot camp trip at the United States Military Academy in New York, also known as West Point.

Insight has close ties to the academy through CEO Ken Lamneck, who graduated at West Point and rose to the rank of captain in the US army.

Hedley said the trip was invaluable from a leadership perspective and helped equip him with the skills ultimately needed to run the UK business.

"It's been a journey in terms of my personal development," he said.

"If I think about the number of appointments that have taken place over the last 18 months, the vast majority of management roles have gone to internal candidates.

"I was lucky enough to go to West Point where they do leadership training. We took our global senior leadership team and also development individuals, which is where I fell into it.

"There are a number of three-star generals teaching the course and it was very much about the importance of leadership and a leader's intent. It's about how you're able to articulate the journey you're going on and not necessarily how you get there.

"I think as a leader you can sometimes feel the expectation is that you need to know everything, but that's not true; what you do is use the skills in your team.

"The 4:30am boot camps, which nobody told me about, weren't my idea of fun necessarily, but actually you're doing it with the cadets there, they're singing the marching songs and it was really interesting and thought provoking."

Aside from dealing with the fallout from Brexit, Hedley said that his main objective for 2021 is retaining the agility that Insight has developed this year.

"I think what we realised quite quickly that there was a need, not to scale down the offerings, but make them simpler so companies could react quickly," he said.

"It was around two areas: how companies optimise cost and how they make sure their workforce is agile.

"So for us it was an acceleration of the strategy we had around customer offerings but also simplification.

"Rather than talking about a whole change adoption programme with a business… we made that a lot simpler to digest and that has worked really well for us."