Mike Chambers

Managing director, Comparex UK

Career so far

I have worked for Action, Insight, SCC and now Comparex.

What was your first job and were you any good at it?

I worked in a meat factory, sorting the prime cuts from the offal. Nothing changes really.

Who was your top teenage pin-up? Michaela Strachan.

My colleagues won’t know this about me but…

I went to a monastic boarding school from the age of eight. Think Hogwarts with monks.

What is your favourite snack? Pepperami.

What has been your career high point to date? Winning the Tesco account this year.

Has 2013 been good, bad or ugly?

Good. We have won a large number of enormous multi-region customers this year, and adding to this monthly. We have also re-aligned our teams with a specific vendor focus. What do you say when asked at a party what you do for a living?When you buy a PC from a shop, you may buy a box with a copy of MS Office on CD etc. We sell these to large organisations that don’t want a box of software, but just a piece of paper allowing them the rights to use the software. So we sell bits of paper worth hundreds of thousands of pounds. And no – I won’t come round the fix your computer!

If I wasn’t working in the channel I would probably be…

Cutting grass with a ride-on lawnmower.

What will be the channel’s biggest challenge in 2014?

Embracing the cloud for the long term, and vendors keeping their licence schemes up to date with this.