Angela Whitty has spoken of her desire to “reset” her career after taking the decision to step down as Ampito CEO for personal reasons.
The popular industry figure will move into a Non Exec role at the Crawley-based IT solutions provider at the end of September, ending her near three-year stint in charge.
Talking to IT Channel Oxygen, Whitty said she had been forced to reflect on her priorities after her 91-year-old father was diagnosed with Alzheimer’s as well as other health related issues.
“The last six to nine months have been quite difficult,” she said.
“I’ve been trying to spend as much time as possible with him, which is really difficult when you’re working full time and he is 4 hours away.
“It’s not that I’m going to be disappearing from the industry. It just needed a bit of a reset.”
“It’s made me want to reflect”
Whitty joined 71st-ranked Oxygen 250 outfit Ampito as its CEO in January 2022, following a 29-year stint at Cisco (including the last seven running the networking giant’s UK&I channel).
Having to juggle work with family care issues has made Whitty reflect on her priorities, she acknowledged.
“I was a single parent for a long time. I did significant jobs when my kids were small and went straight from Cisco to Ampito. It’s made me want to reflect on what I need from this stage of my life and my career.” she said.
Whitty was quick to pay tribute to the impact her father had on her career, stressing that he worked for a prior iteration of telecoms giant Marconi.
“He was there for 46 years, and was quite inspirational for me as to why I got into IT,” she said.
“When I started out in IT, we would have long conversations around how you should do things, how you should be prepared to take chances, and about being authentic.”
Whitty will continue to support Ampito part-time in her new Non-Executive Chair role, and is also an advisor on the board of the Business Disability Forum.
“I don’t want people to think I’m walking away from Ampito, because I’m not. I’m going to stay engaged and support [founder] Manny [Pinon] who has been incredibly supportive,” she said.
“We’ve done a lot over the last couple of years with regards to putting in new systems and tools.
“We’ve focused a lot on automation, and have rebranded. So we’re in good stead for growth.
“It’s not that I’m going to be disappearing from the industry. It’s just that I need to work in a different way that gives me more flexibility.”
Doug Woodburn is editor of IT Channel Oxygen
