Ian Kilpatrick

CRN: What's the most pressing issue preventing progress with diversity today that no one's talking about?

IK: " There is not awareness in schools, in lower years, of what the IT channel is, and the opportunities. As a consequence, whole swathes of children self-exclude themselves from ever contemplating entering the industry, they may not like coding, or science etc. This means that prior to interview all the groups that are underrepresented in the channel, including but not limited to Girls, BAME, neurodiverse, economically disadvantaged etc have already unwittingly excluded themselves for consideration."

How much progress do you believe the industry has made in diversity since you started working in IT?

IK: "When I started in the 80s at a senior level it was essentially a monoculture of white males. Women and BAME, including the women on my board were outliers. This contrasted with greater diversity in the US. There has been considerable (slow) progress from a very low base. But like the US our demographic, and in particular in senior positions, is still very different from that of the population."

CRN: What should senior management teams be doing more of to help create a more inclusive industry for everyone?

IK: " Studying and emulating the best practices of the leading companies in DEI."

CRN: How did you first get into the IT industry?

IK: " Like the majority I stumbled into it. I had a financial and management consultancy, and we had a client, Wick Hill with an online testing product they wanted to sell. It was so much fun I sold out and bought into Wick Hill and the enjoyment continued for decades."

CRN: What have been some of your experiences (both good and bad) with how the channel has historically approached diversity?

IK: " The channel has been on a journey that replicates, rather than leads, the journey that we have experienced as a nation. There are organisations that lead the way with best practice and there are others who lag."

CRN: Who have been your biggest role models in your professional life, and how have they helped you to succeed?

IK: " Patrick Dodds who was my first boss and mentor who set me on the path that eventually led to Wick Hill. I have a mentoring debt to repay him for. And Bill Hewlett and Dave Packard and the HP way, which they published in the mid 70s.

"Trust and respect for individuals, high level of achievement and contribution, conduct business with integrity, achieve objectives through teamwork, encourage flexibility and innovation. Attempting to emulate the HP way has guided my business decisions."

CRN: Do you think companies should be compelled to publish ‘ethnicity pay gap' data?

IK: "I can see the intent, but I think it's not the best metric to help organisations focus. This may assist some of the Goliaths, but we have a huge channel of thousands of organisations and we need to drive awareness and action on DEI across the whole ecosystem."