Role: CEO, OBT
What’s been your business high point of the last 12 months?
Launching OBT’s data & AI proposition and seeing us grow so quickly has been an absolute highlight of any year!
Name one thing your company is looking to achieve in 2026
Significantly exceeding our business plan projections and shake up the unfathomably staid AI channel world.
What keeps you awake at night as a partner leader?
Nothing, I sleep incredibly well. Whatever is on my mind before I get in bed, can’t be fixed before the morning, so what’s the point in worrying about it.
Is AI being over-hyped?
Yes and no. Yes from a general media perspective, but definitely not from an impact in business perspective. Consumer AI has been embraced to a spectacular extent, but business AI has a really long way to go, but it is accelerating.
What’s been your most successful internal AI project to date, and why?
OBT Grid – our internal and external customer portal. It tracks everything from once a project has been won, through to the customer engaging with their OBT managed service.
Can you share a surprising prediction about how UK IT channel partners or the UK IT channel will evolve over the next 5 years?
Some of the moribund larger players will wither and die once their lack of action over the last five years catches up with them… replaced with agile, customer value-focused partners. I can’t wait.
Which tech gizmo (hardware or software) could you not function without?
Anthropic Claude, totally revolutionised my work day and personal tasks. Nothing else compares.
Which three famous people, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party?
- Dave Chappelle
- Johnny Cash
- Stephen Fry
If you had a warning label, what would it say?
Beware, highly combustible.
Which tech figurehead has impressed you the most this year, and why?
Rene Haas at ARM, the organic growth in a UK tech firm is nothing short of spectacular. He comes across so well in interview too, much lower ego than you’d expect for a person in his position. I love his “Innovation doesn’t wait” quote.
View the Oxygen Partner Leaders hub, powered by Giacom, here
