Jeanette Forbes

What has been your personal highlight of 2020?

Recently receiving the Significant Contribution Award at the SPE Offshore Achievement Awards I'm only the second woman to ever receive this award and the first British woman.

Which three celebrities would you invite to a Zoom party?

Peter Kay, Ricky Gervais and John Bishop. That party would be full of laughs.

What has been your guiltiest lockdown pleasure?

It has to be chocolate. My willpower went right out the window!

Which tech figurehead has inspired you most this year, and why?

My inspiration is Elon Musk and his SpaceX project.

What piece of technology, or app, have you not been able to do without during the pandemic?

My broadband/WiFi connection. We need the infrastructure to make technology work!

If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do?

I would be the entrepreneurial ambassador/advisor to government. It is so important for government to understand the real underlying issues around running businesses. Ask those who are at the coalface, trying to make it work every day of the year and this was pre-COVID-19.

Do you miss face-to-face events?

Yes, indeed I do. Social face-to-face interaction is so important. You can often tell a person's receptiveness by their body language. Zoom and Teams cannot offer you that!

How will COVID leave its mark on the way the channel operates long term?

Through technology, businesses in all sectors survived. We need to look at the supply chain issues. Whoever thought we would not be able to source laptops? Those in the supply chain that increased their prices beyond their normal percentage mark-up need to take a good look at themselves. You did this sector no favours.