Group sales & marketing director, Zycko
Career so far I originally wanted to be a tank commander, but luckily the army didn't agree! I studied to be a quantity surveyor which proved too uninspiring, so I got a job with a local estate agency to pay the bills - I sold more houses than any other agent in the company. Then thanks to a drinking buddy, I got a job as a fishmonger. I spent 18 months setting up a supply route to the top hotels and restaurants in the Cotswold-Oxford region. I then met the now chairman of Zycko in the local pub and started to work in his original brokerage business as his first salesperson, later sales manager. Originally called RBR Networks, we grew from $50m to over $500m per annum, being the largest Cisco distributor in the UK and Germany, and later renamed Comstor. I started at Zycko in 2001 as sales director.
Do you care about green IT? Of course, it's the future!
If you could be in a rock/pop band, which one would it be and who would you be? It would have to be Jim Morrison from The Doors, in memory of my brother.
What is the best corporate jolly you have ever been on/taken partners on? It goes back to the RBR days with a visit to Spain. A plane full of guests, top 40 musicians (who cannot be mentioned for legal reasons) and theatrical acts made for an extreme weekend that included the Half Monty, inappropriate Roman candle displays and everything in excess. Being awarded a lifetime ban from the hotel and a significant repair bill made for a legendary party!
Has 2009 been as bad as everyone said it would be? There have been moments! However, as a whole we certainly cannot moan, having not seen the hard times that many have. With a 20 per cent increase in revenues, and a 10 per cent increase in profit, our strategy, both geographically and technology wise, has proved its worth.
Have any of your predictions come true this year? I am happy that our focus on providing technologies around optimisation and datacentre efficiency has been correct.
What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2010? As always tangibly delivering value add to our vendors and resellers, plus delivering the technologies surrounding buzz topics such as the cloud, further developments in virtualisation, and maintaining the optimisation and efficiency direction.
What is the best part of your day? It has to be a joint first between reading a bedtime book to my four-year-old daughter, and discovering the delights of her day at school! And spending time with my wife.
