Lewis Simmonds
What has been your personal highlight of 2020?
I've really enjoyed the opportunity to spend some extra time with my children and look for new ways to spend our time; baking and fishing have definitely been among the highlights.
Which three celebrities would you invite to a Zoom party?
Peter Crouch, Maya Jama, Russell Kane.
What has been your guiltiest lockdown pleasure?
Like I said above, I've had a chance to go fishing and teach my son a few times in lockdown. Not really a guilty pleasure on its own, but I'm still not used to all the free time I've had through not travelling and there is something really enjoyable about taking a day off just to go fishing.
Which tech figurehead has inspired you most this year, and why?
Antonio Neri, for the way he's navigated HPE through this pandemic, putting employees, partners and customers front and centre of everything we do with our Force for Good mentality, and also getting onstage and delivering the keynote at HPE Virtual Discover while recovering from COVID himself.
What piece of technology, or app, have you not been able to do without during the pandemic?
My Apple Watch and the Nike running app. It can be really hard to motivate yourself to get out and be active, but the ability to see how other people are doing, and how my own times have improved, really helps.
If you could be anyone else for a week, who would you be and what would you do?
My 22-year-old self. Then a better question would be, what wouldn't I do?
Do you miss face-to-face events?
Definitely. So much of sales is about interaction and relationships, and that's truest for the channel. The past six months have demonstrated how flexible we can be in adapting certain meetings to calls, but also highlighted the importance of face-to-face interaction for others.
How will COVID leave its mark on the way the channel operates long term?
COVID is accelerating the way customers are looking at procuring their technology. We're seeing a rapid shift to consumption. Businesses need more than ever to be agile and have the ability to flex up and down their IT for demand. We have a solution in HPE GreenLake.