AHEAD’s customers do not see it as a VAR, its newly appointed EMEA VP claimed as it prepares to ramp up its presence in the region.
The $5.5bn-revenue, US-based outfit last week announced a trio of “strategic moves” that together represent its “most deliberate entry into the European market to date”.
This included the appointment of former WWT bigwig Paul Allen as Executive VP of Sales, EMEA.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Allen confirmed AHEAD’s existing UK staff – which it inherited from its 2024 acquisition of CDI – have all now been moved into a new Reading HQ that will officially open in August.
It will house a new ‘AHEAD Foundry’ facility, which is designed to replicate its US capabilities by helping clients here build, configure and test complex AI, HPC and edge infrastructure.
Although the priority is to support the international needs of US customers, AWS, Dell, ServiceNow, Microsoft, Cisco and VMware partner AHEAD will also target new logos in region, Allen confirmed.
“You’ll see from my history there’s a lot of experience to do both, and it’s fair to say that’s one of the reasons I’m here: it is to do both,” he said.
“This isn’t an ‘open for business’, where all these hundreds of customers come – we will be selecting specific customers to go after for specific reasons.
“AHEAD are very, very strong in finance. There will be a heavy focus in the initial phase on some of those financial customers – because of the demand – but that will very, very quickly expand into other verticals.”
“It’s hard to compete against”
AHEAD’s ability to “bridge the gap between strategy and execution” sets it apart from its competitors, Allen said.
“Although resell is a big part of our business, it’s important to recognise that we – and more importantly – our customers, do not necessarily consider AHEAD a VAR,” he said.
“A better way of framing it is a robust, extremely high-growth professional services and managed services business partner.
“We compete with the high-end consultancies. They create blueprints and strategy, but cannot take that strategy into implementation. That’s where we’re seeing a real sweet spot.
“I’ve competed against [AHEAD]. It’s hard to compete against in the market.”
“There’s a lack of understanding of our size and scale”
Having acquired similar-sized peer CDI in 2025, Berkshire Partners-backed cloud, data and security specialist AHEAD generated gross revenues of $5.5bn in 2025.
Although Allen confirmed the £26m revenue figure shown in AHEAD’s UK accounts is accurate from a local billing perspective, the number is “significantly more” when factoring in UK business that isn’t recognised in that regional figure.
“There’s a lack of understanding in the market of the size and scale these guys were before, and what they can become,” Allen said.
“Before these announcements, it was predominantly services, operational, delivery, resources, facility resources that were in the UK and Europe. Now there’s a major shift into all the go-to-market resources and teams – and that work is in motion.
“We are actively pursuing customer relationships and partner relationships, but it will go to another level in the months to come.”
Allen claimed AHEAD’s ‘Hatch’ lifecycle management platform will give it the whip hand as components shortages continue to bite.
“Hatch is quite advanced tooling that has really impressed me, and the ability to manage the supply chain within tooling on that is going to set partners like us apart,” he said.
“If a partner understands the strategy of a customer and that route forward, I’m not saying it resolves the situation with the supply chain issues, but it makes it far easier to manage those supply expectations.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
