John Toal

Sales and marketing director, Onyx Group

Career so far

I started my career as a production engineer for STC, then quickly decided I wanted to move into sales – a much more glamorous life. I secured a sales role in Reading and went on to enjoy 23 years in IT distribution with PSL, Bell Micro and finally Avnet before recently making the leap into the cloud with Onyx Group this year.

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

My first job after finishing my degree at Southampton University was as production engineer working on a shop floor with 50 boisterous women in Devon. It was a real baptism of fire for a naive graduate. It was a great time, full of friendly banter and I think I made a difference.

Who was your top teenage pin-up?

Stevie Nicks of Fleetwood Mac. Just wild and different.

My colleagues won’t know this about me but…

Actually I’m pretty open with them and enjoy talking about all aspects of my life. What wouldn’t they know? Probably that I got married at 22 and it didn’t last too long – not my best ever decision.

What is your favourite snack?

I can’t resist a really good bacon sandwich, white bread with butter and ketchup. Very bad – where’s the buffet car?

What has been your career high point to date?

Standing up at the 2002 PSL Christmas party and looking out at the whole team of more than 200 and thinking “We we have created this ourselves. Wow.”

Has 2013 been good, bad or ugly?

It has been a great year. I joined Onyx Group and I love it. What do you say when asked at a party what you do for a living? I take a deep breath and think if we as an industry can’t agree what cloud is how on earth am I going to explain that to a lawyer.

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

Running a manufacturing company again. I did enjoy my early career making things.

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

Making things simple. In my new role there are so many ways to solve a customer’s business challenges you have to be very clear otherwise we just create confusion. As an industry we are great at innovating – it’s the channel leader’s role to distill all this into great customer solutions.