Martin Hellawell

Career so far Largely disappointing.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do? I would be Peter Kelly, Softcat's chairman. I would wear his ridiculously flamboyant clothes, transfer my 50 per cent ownership of Softcat to the much deserving Martin Hellawell and then resign from the Softcat board.

Cloud - friend or foe? A friend called foe.

Has 2011 been as bad as everyone said it would be? Not at all. It's been a very good year for good IT businesses.

What would you have as your last meal? A nice healthy salad. It would be good to try something I've never had before.

Who would you like to be stuck in a lift with? Computacenter's Mike Norris and I got stuck in a lift in Paris 20 years ago. I nearly lost it and he looked after me, so I'd choose Mike.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? Not really - forecasting has never been a strength of mine. I generally fear the worse and I am then pleasantly surprised.

What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2012? Staying optimistic. Whatever happens with the economy or the cloud, there is still plenty of business out there.

What is the best part of your day? First thing. I wake up ridiculously early and am generally knackered by 10 in the morning.