David Poskett

Vice president enterprise, UK&I, Huawei

Career so far

I spent 25 years at HP in a variety of UK & European management roles including UK channel director and EMEA channel sales director. I then had a year at Cisco and have been at Huawei for two years.

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

I joined HP from university and started as a sales support for enterprise sales on an 18-month career development path. I was then promoted into sales after only six months and successfully sold into the oil sector, becoming a member of the HP Worldwide Presidents Club (top 100 sales people worldwide!).

Who was your top teenage pin-up?

Babs from Pans People.

My colleagues won't know this about me but... I have a fear of heights and went skydiving in Cape Town.

What is your favourite snack?

Cheese and crisps.

What has been your career high point to date?

I successfully transformed the HP UK channel from the worst to best performing country!

Has 2013 been good, bad or ugly?

Great: we have grown the business 500 per cent.

What do you say when asked at a party what you do for a living?

I work for an amazing Chinese IT company.

If I wasn't working in the channel I would probably be... in property development.

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

Transitioning their business to take advantage of growth areas to deliver short, medium and long-term profitability, for example, BYOD, big data and cloud services.