The SMAs and TalkTalk - meet the contenders

We speak to reseller TalkTalk about their achievements in the last year and what it means to be nominated at SMAs 2023

The Sales and Marketing Awards 2023 are fast approaching and as we prepare find out the winners of at this year's ceremony on Thursday 29 June at Leonardo Royal Hotel, Tower Bridge, we met some of the contenders.

Today we speak to Lisa Hewitt, who is interim people director at TalkTalk wholesale services.

Hewitt has over 15 years' experience in the Telecoms sector.

She joined TalkTalk Wholesale Services following the acquisition of Virtual1 in 2022 where she was head of people for two and half years.

Hewitt is now accountable for curating and executing on the people strategy for the business at TalkTalk's wholesale services division.

TalkTalk is shortlisted for the Best Company to Work For award.

Why do you think awards like the SMAs matter? What would winning this award mean to your company?

Being recognised for The Best Company to Work For award at this year's CRN Sales & Marketing Awards is a great opportunity to recognise all of the individuals within TalkTalk wholesale services - they are the ones who make the business a fantastic place to work.

What would you say is your company's proudest achievement over the past year?

The acquisition and integration of Virtual1 into TalkTalk has been a great achievement for the people team within our wholesale services division.

Last September, we integrated 120 employees awithin just 4 months by harmonising our values, terms and benefits, as well as our colleague systems and payrolls.

And, thanks to the hard work of our people during this period, the transition has been almost seamless, benefitting the work of our people and the culture of the business.

What have been the biggest challenges of 2023 so far and how have you overcome them? How have your people helped with that?

The integration of Virtual1 and TalkTalk wholesale services required reorganising the teams across both businesses to become one Wholesale organisation, aligned to the same missions, values and goals.

Maintaining a collaborative working culture was incredibly important to us during this time and helped us overcome many of the difficulties typically associated with large integration projects.

Throughout the period we kept our people fully informed of our plans, listening intently to what they felt was and wasn't working and, in the end, we were able to deliver on all of our plans and are now working as one team, aligned to one goal.

How do you think the channel has changed over the past year and what changes do you think it still needs to make?

From a People perspective, we're definitely starting to see an improvement in diversity and inclusion initiatives across the channel.

It is very much at the top of the agenda in our area, however there is still some way to go until we see a truly diverse industry but a goal I feel the Channel will continue to strive for.

Greater diversity not only improves business culture but also provides organisations with the opportunities to see and think differently.

The result of this is greater innovation, which leads to better business results in all areas.