Terry Beale

Channel director, EMC

Career so far From average engineer, to sales at Xerox, to sales – and now channel – management at EMC.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be? Alastair Cook: I love building teams!

What will next year’s most overhyped industry buzzword be? Self-serve – or ‘the internet of things’.

Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? Is has been a very good year. We’ve transformed and enhanced our partners’ scope of opportunity, and brought many new partners on board.

What would you have as your last meal? Quattro stagioni. It truly is the spice of life.

What keeps you awake at night? My growth targets! In all seriousness, EMC has an ambitious global growth agenda which is prompting every employee in every department – in every country – to reach for new heights and to over-achieve.

What piece of technology could you not be without? My BlackBerry.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? Yes – all of our partners are evolving into genuine service providers.

What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? EMC’s 2012 Partner Council in Tenerife. This was my first event as channel director.

What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2013? The channel’s challenge is our challenge too: how to get intimate with our customers’ business.