Richard Roberts

Managing director, partner & commercial sales, UK at Cisco

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

My first ‘proper job’ was as a milk round at 13 – out at 3:30am, back for school at 8am, five days a week…. I was so competitive I tried to beat my times every morning, only to have more houses added, so my round grew but my pay didn’t… So, I was good, but it was bad.

Who was your top teenage pin-up?

Debbie Harry. She had it all.

My colleagues won’t know this about me but…..

When I was 16, and thinner, I ran 15 miles barefoot for charity dressed as Chuck Norris.

What is your favourite snack?

Betty’s Fat Rascals, warmed, with lashings of marge!

What has been your career high point to date?

Spending time at the London 2012 Olympics, being part of something incredibly special and wonderfully British. We wowed the world.

Has 2013 been a good, bad or ugly year? Why?

It’s been a really good year – in business, in life, on balance.

What do you say when strangers at a social gathering ask what you do for a living?

I’m the man that puts the jam in life’s donuts. If they persist I would probably say that I work in IT and hope that cools their interest….

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

A Child Psychologist, a lecturer, or a writer.

What do you see as the channel’s biggest challenge in 2014?

Balancing ambition and innovation with a need to compete without commoditising our value.