Role: CEO, Connectus Business Solutions
What’s been your business high point of the last 12 months?
There are many high points to reflect upon, but I feel the best (not biggest) was winning our first award. This was a team win and well deserved, as our whole team was there on a cold December to celebrate the win, which really has inspired them to strive for more.
Name one thing your company is looking to achieve in 2026
Overachieve and provide outstanding customer service for all of customers regardless of size, region and spend.
What keeps you awake at night as a partner leader?
Not a great deal, I sleep well as I work and exercise hard and always try to do the right thing. I have learnt over the years stop worrying about the things you can’t control.
Is AI being over-hyped?
Hype and reality aren’t mutually exclusive. The internet was massively over-hyped in 1999 and also genuinely world changing. The dot-com crash didn’t mean the internet wasn’t real; it meant the timeline and the winners were misjudged. AI is likely in a similar position: the long-run impact is probably being under-estimated, while the short-run speed and smoothness of that impact is being over-estimated.
What’s been your most successful internal AI project to date, and why?
We have enabled our NOC and SOC with more AI-driven learning and workflow to service our 700-plus customers more effectively yet maintained that “Human First” not just human in the loop approach. This success will now lead to more internal projects.
Can you share a surprising prediction about how UK IT channel partners or the UK IT channel will evolve over the next 5 years?
Partners will need to become more compliant to satisfy current and pending regulatory requirements along with the need for greater empathy and embedding with their partners and clients. There is already a movement from transactional driven to more outcome driven outcomes and relationships.
Which tech gizmo (hardware or software) could you not function without?
I love Claude (AKA Claudia) she is amazing (but so is my wife just in case she reads this); Claudia makes me look smarter than I am, save me time so I can watch more rugby and spend time on fun thing with our team and my family
Which three famous people, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party?
My mother, who died when I was 24 but still shapes my moral compass and family Values, Mohammed Ali, my sporting hero, and Elon Musk. I would love to know what fireworks go over in his head and how he pulls it all together.
If you had a warning label, what would it say?
Don’t disappoint me, do what you say you are going to do and do it to the best of your ability as I will always do the same for you.
Which tech figurehead has impressed you the most this year, and why?
Elon Musk: he is an eccentric showman, and a true visionary who delivers. Starlink is growing into a globally accepted connectivity solution and Space X is now one of the world’s largest brands. The downside is, I really don’t like Teslas.
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