Chairman, Blackhawk Capital LLP
Career so far I was founder and managing director of Cisco Systems; chairman of Xploite (formerly Matrix Communications) and Glasshouse. I am now chairman and joint partner of Blackhawk Capital LLP – a private equity investor in TMT.
If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be? Any of the top golfers who get the chance to play at some of the best courses around the world.
What will next year’s most overhyped industry buzzword be? Cloud services (again).
Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? It has been a mix of all three for many reasons – but it is most definitely good now.
What would you have as your last meal? Shepherd’s pie and red wine.
What keeps you awake at night? When you’re edging towards the end of completing a major transaction and you’re 99 per cent sure it’s going to happen but there’s always that 1 per cent of doubt. No deal is 100 per cent until the signatures are on the page. Then I can sleep.
What piece of technology could you not be without? My widescreen TV as I’m an avid fan of most sports and my Sky HD+ box, without which I’d miss most of them.
Have any of your predictions come true this year? Consolidation is starting in the reseller channel.
What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? A Dimension Data customer event to Elephant Hills in Zimbabwe. We went to the Victoria Falls and did white water rafting.
What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2013? Deciding where to invest for growth – no one area of market expansion is clear right now.
