Role: CEO, Telana
What’s been your business high point of the last 12 months?
We had lots of change over the last year – our maiden acquisition, the merging of two teams (and brand!), the expansion into new technology and partnership areas, etc. So for me, the proudest achievement(s) must be the ability to continue to hire some great talent, sign significant new customers and ultimately achieve good growth and profitability, while managing all of that.
Name one thing your company is looking to achieve in 2026
Nothing groundbreaking, really. I’ll have to give you a boring answer to this one. We are just (!) looking to capitalise on the momentum we’ve built in the last 12 months, continuing to assemble a great team and delivering tangible results for our customers. But we also have ambitious growth aspirations and will continue to look for opportunities to accelerate that.
What keeps you awake at night as a partner leader?
This is always an interesting question, because when running a business you get an ever-changing answer. One day it can be a competitive deal and whether we’re nailing the right strategy to win it. Another day it can be thinking about delivery quality or about the team. All the way to the bigger questions such as “do we have the right strategy?”. And occasionally questioning the meaning of life! On a serious note, anything can be a major worry at any given point in time, but the antidote to that is to sleep well knowing that you have the right team and the right approach. That will solve most issues.
Is AI being over-hyped?
Yes and no. Yes, when you go to events and everyone is talking about “agents interacting with other agents” and other jargon, but no one really knows or explains what these “agents” are doing or what value they are delivering. No, in the sense that this is an undeniable major shift in the industry. The real adoption is in its very infancy and you should ignore it at your own peril. As an organisation what we continually work on is making sure we’re here to capture the opportunity. And I 100% believe we are.
What’s been your most successful internal AI project to date, and why?
We have quite a lot internally, most of which also built using AI. From internal processing of documents from suppliers to an entire career development and recognition platform, or a full end-to-end programme management system, we have significantly harnessed its potential. But we’re not done yet, we have some key internal initiatives to accelerate this further.
Can you share a surprising prediction about how UK IT channel partners or the UK IT channel will evolve over the next 5 years?
I’m not sure anything can be that surprising anymore (and I don’t want to look daft if in a few years’ time!), but there’s one thing which is still underrated but will grow significantly in the next few years. And that’s FinOps for AI. FinOps for cloud is largely well understood and managed efficiently these days. AI adds an end-user element (on top of being embedded into software and IT systems, like cloud) and will create exponential proliferation. Proliferation combined with impending cost uncertainty, will create significant focus on IT and Finance teams to predictably manage costs. And more importantly, keep those tightly linked to business value. Organisations like Telana are well positioned to help.
Which tech gizmo (hardware or software) could you not function without?
I’ll be more provocative here and state that software or hardware alone do not make people more organised nor efficient. A disorganised person with a gadget is still disorganised and inefficient. Most things you have on your laptop and phone are enough to make you incredibly productive and are more than enough. Chiefly among them now is AI (Gemini, CoPilot, Claude – take your pick) which has undeniably accelerated that. But you must make sure you are still organised, you own and review your output, ensure you keep your style in anything you do, and definitely don’t outsource your critical thinking to it!
Which three famous people, dead or alive, would you invite to a dinner party?
It depends on what I’d like to get out of it. I could invite historical “heroes”, such as Nelson Mandela, to learn and absorb their wisdom. Or I could go with some more “controversial” figures, like Machiavelli or Napoleon, to get a sense for who they really were. But I’d also like to have a good night of fun and therefore invite someone like Freddie Mercury (judging by his parties in the movie!). What about one each? It would surely be memorable!
If you had a warning label, what would it say?
Warning: May organise awkward dinner parties.
Which tech figurehead has impressed you the most this year, and why?
We have to acknowledge the impressive achievements in space exploration, AI and many other technologies, so lots of top people to recognise in those fields. Running the risk of not answering the question properly, the people that impressed me the most are the technology leaders we work with at our customers. They are facing the fastest-paced set of changes in their careers and are really stepping up to the challenge. So my recognition goes to them. (Obviously, working with Telana really helps!).
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