Jody Pawson

Group sales director, OrangeIS Group

Career so far I had a short stint at Ingram Micro followed by Tangible Benefit for five years, Panacea Services for four and OrangeIS for nearly seven years.

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be? Basquiat, a New York graffiti artist that evolved into one of the great modern expressionist artists. He hung out with Warhol, made music, appeared in films and partied pretty hard - all round, a pretty cool guy.

What will next year's most overhyped industry buzzword be? It depends on what vendor you speak to! I tend to steer clear of them but there are a multitude to choose from…BYOD, all the varieties of cloud, SaaS, ultrabook, value propositions, big data… however, my number one pick for 2013 is re-dupe.

Has 2012 been a good, bad or ugly year? A good year: we have opened two new businesses (OrangeIS Security Solutions and OrangeIS Financial Services) and we continue to deliver an increase in sales and profitability.

What would you have as your last meal? To start, buffalo hot wings with blue cheese dip, followed by chilli cheese fries, a Lucky Chip "El Chappo" burger coupled with one of their cheese burgers. To finish, an original New York cheesecake and a considerable amount of Brooklyn Ales.

What keeps you awake at night? Ideas and the continual drive to be a success from both a business and personal perspective.

What piece of technology could you not be without? Realistically my phone. It's a boring answer, but the reality is without that, business would be impossible.

Have any of your predictions come true this year? Yes and no. Yes, I believe there is a genuine improvement in the economy albeit it's happening very, very, slowly. No, GKP has continued to fall in price so that was one prediction that I hoped I would be right on!

What is the best partner/customer trip you have ever been on? Any number of Hitachi's trips: always great hotels, informative presentations and the booze never stops flowing.

What do you see as the channel's biggest challenge in 2013? Continued consolidation of the channel and the profitability available within it. And of course the economy.

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