Mukesh Gupta

What has been your personal highlight of 2020?

Working from home regularly for the first time has been enjoyable - more time spent with my kids, improving my cooking and learning to play the piano.

Which three celebrities would you invite to a Zoom party?

I think we're all used to seeing our friends and having fun on Zoom, so I don't need a celebrity to provide entertainment.

What has been your guiltiest lockdown pleasure?

Finding the opportunity for quality time in the garden. I've found a new love of chipping! But as a guilty pleasure, binge-watching series on Netflix is there too.

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

Zoom's leadership have demonstrated the importance of having the right product, at the right time, and delivering for your customers. No-one predicted this situation, but they've made the most of it, and been very agile in responding to intense customer and market feedback.

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

It's hard to avoid the obvious: Netflix!

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

Being Jeff Bezos, and then getting divorced to make my wife the second-richest person in the world would be interesting!

Do you miss face-to-face events?

I miss the personal engagement, body language and human interaction of face-to-face events - but I think we've also learned how we'd like to change them for the better in the future.

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

It might mean a long-term recession, but the way the channel has embraced and enabled digital transformation and remote working for customers has fundamentally changed all our working lives. Making a positive change while still being able to grow our businesses and be successful is a fantastic opportunity, and one we all need to embrace.