PCR Tech and IT retail, distribution and vendor news
From vendors to distributors to retailers, there is a mass of young talent across all areas of the UK IT and tech channel. In alphabetical order by surname, PCR rounds up 30 rising stars under the age of 30 who have already made an impact in the industry and we predict will be ones to watch in the near future.
Mike Britton
Technical Presales Consultant, Panda Security UK
“Since joining Panda Security UK in 2015, Mike has risen through technical support to become a key member of the technical presales team, training new and existing partners to get the best from Panda solutions. When not visiting partners or hosting webinars, Mike can be found presenting at both international and UK events, where he is not averse to wearing a shirt.”
Matt Collins
Ecommerce Executive, BT Shop
“Matt joined BT on a temporary graduate scheme on the education team in the product supply business and secured a permanent role last year to join the BT Shop consumer team. Working with the marketing team he collaborates with product managers and designers to produce quarterly campaigns for the online ecommerce site, BT Shop. He writes copy for emails, direct marketing and web and has helped grow the social platforms. Matt’s positive and passionate outlook to marketing has made him an integral and valuable part for the team.”
Joe Cowell
Northern Europe PR Manager, AMD
“Joe currently overseas all AMD PR across Northern Europe, including the UK. He has developed strong relationships with AMD’s SI and OEM partners to help deliver PR campaigns for the latest AMD products, including Ryzen 2nd generation processors, Radeon graphics cards and systems with AMD hardware. He has become synonymous with ‘AMD PR’ in the UK, regularly opening new doors for AMD with media and influencers alike.”
Will Denton
Product Manager – Gaming Accessories, Box.co.uk
“Will Denton joined Box.co.uk as a web merchandiser in April 2018 to support product managers at Box. In his role, Will supported colleagues with web content, product set up and some elements of marketing. Will’s positive attitude, enthusiasm, dedication and his determination to succeed shone very early on into his employment with Box. Out of his work hours and in his own time Will regularly researched products and the industry, which was over and above what was expected of him in his role. He did this to learn and grow and to understand the categories he supported. Will’s colleagues say working with him is “an absolute pleasure, nothing is too much trouble, he is a true team player and his work ethic is one that stands out”. Product categories saw huge growth in the period that Will supported them (monitors growth over 50% and networking over 100%), and Box has received positive feedback about Will from within the business as well as from both its vendors and distributors.”
Jordan Druce
Retail Account Manager, CMS Distribution
“Jordan’s first sales role at CMS Distribution has given him the platform to exceed and grow within the company. He has already achieved huge success for himself and his customers, finding himself high in the achievers league and rewarded with a place on the annual trip to Las Vegas. A huge accomplishment at just 21.”
James Forbes
Web Services Manager, Edward Martin Computer Services Ltd
“James’ stature is increasing daily. In addition to his role as web services manager, he has taken his work to a higher level, and because of this, the company’s workflow in this area is currently full, with the pipeline full for at least the next six months. On top of this, James has redefined the company’s telephony and mobile offerings and in a very short time has developed in-house systems for managing them – onboarded a lot of existing and new clients. His next project is on security offerings and he has already set up dark web monitoring and back office systems to manage it. James’ enthusiasm is infectious and his can-do attitude is keeping the company ahead of the game.”
Chris Fuller
UK Account Manager, Corsair
“Chris has been instrumental over the last four years in driving Corsair’s successful UK Amazon business. The growth Chris has helped Corsair achieve with the account is nothing short of staggering. Chris continues to represent Corsair at all major UK events, being instantly recognisable to customers and major gaming influencers alike. Chris has added Overclockers to his account portfolio in 2019 and is already proving a success in driving their business forward for Corsair.”
Shubham Goel
Product Manager – Enterprise Software, QBS Software
“Shubham graduated from Kings College London with a 1st class MSci in Computer Science. He joined QBS on the graduate programme and has recently been promoted to product management after his sterling work with growing the Intel Software and Sharegate revenues. Shubham’s product area is tracking at 469% CAGR driven by his proactive nature, product expertise and epitomises the ‘value add’ in distribution.”
Abbie-Lee Hollister
Marketing Director, Zedsphere
“Abbie has delivered massive impact implementation and invaluable strategic guidance at Zedsphere since joining the company as its first employee in May 2016. During that time she successfully operated in multiple functions including sales, marketing and operations, playing a key role in taking Zedsphere from £0 to £2m per year in its first 24 months. Abbie now oversees the delivery of Zedsphere’s pan-European marketing strategy as part of the wider QBS Group and will be earning her PhD in Business and Management in September 2019.”
Ian Holloway
Head of Marketing (UK&I), Medion UK
“Ian heads up the marketing function for Medion UK, devising the overall strategy for UK and Ireland. Working very closely with technology partners, retailers and etailers, he has a big impact on driving sales results through joint up co-marketing campaigns delivering a better ROI and better sales out results than standard campaigns. This has lead to the growth of the ERAZER sub-brand in the UK, making it more recognisable in the gaming industry and with consumers.”
Jamie Hope
Distribution Account Manager, Corsair
“One year ago, at the tender age of 22, Jamie joined Corsair and has excelled in his role as distribution account manager since. From the start of 2019 he has run UK distribution for Corsair and Elgato products fully autonomously. Jamie is a superb brand ambassador and continues to help drive Corsair’s wide ranging business across the UK. His colleagues say he should feel proud of all he has achieved in his first year within Corsair.”
Meghann Howe
Marketing Product Trader, Buy It Direct
“Meghann started at Buy It Direct as an apprentice in June 2015. After learning the ropes with basic administration, she soon moved on to looking after some of the firm’s smaller categories, and was promoted into her current role. She now looks at the customer journey for the monitor category throughout the business, and oversees the marketing strategy on the range. Her work on the website has resulted in huge improvements in SEO and over double the amount of traffic in a short space of time.”
Dan Jones
Intel Success Delivery Partner, GNR:Tech
“Dan has been with GNR Technology Group since leaving college. He manages the Intel relationship and is equally at home with his head in a data centre or talking to a reseller partner about an opportunity. Dan has driven the Intel business to a critical mass and has demonstrated success through excellent product knowledge, a pragmatic attitude and a desire to help the company and reseller partner succeed.”
Katie King
Product Assistant, Hama
“Joining the Hama UK team in 2017, Katie has since proved an invaluable asset to the product management team in integrating new products and driving forward the Hama portfolio of brands. Her positive attitude and ongoing commitment to her field has led to marked improvements in product/sales team communication, customer service and retail support. Always looking onwards and upwards, Katie has conscientiously nurtured the recently introduced Happy Plugs brand, a key player in its blossoming success.”
Marcus Lowe
Business Development Manager, Techbuyer
“Since joining Techbuyer over 11 years ago as the first member of staff at the ripe old age of 16, Marcus has been a leader in growing, developing and steering Techbuyer to become the £36 million business that it is today. During his time at Techbuyer, he has personally brought on 438 new accounts, visited 83 customers across 12 countries, received 1.24 million and sent 1.16 million emails, received over 40,000 orders and has always ensured Techbuyer is a fun place to work with countless office pranks. Marcus always goes above and beyond to provide exceptional customer service and often travels all over the country (and sometimes the world) to hand deliver critical orders when the couriers can’t get there fast enough. One weekend, when a customer called late on a Friday requiring a tape drive as soon as possible, he drove 200 miles to London, got a flight from Gatwick to Copenhagen and then onto another flight from Copenhagen to Aalborg to drop off the drive. He stayed for two hours and took the same gruelling journey back.”
Armelle McGeachie
Marketing Executive, Ingram Micro Cloud
“Graduating from Loughborough University with a 2:1 in BSc International Business in 2018, Armelle took a placement at a marketing agency focusing on big tech firms in the B2B sphere, which led to an internship at a Hubspot agency upon graduating. In her final year, she was a content executive for a lead generation business, a paid fundraiser for the university and an administrator for a Data Modelling company. With her unique outlook on everyday work challenges at Ingram she has grown in strength.”
Jamie-Lea Newbould
Sales Support Administrator, Target Components
“Having just left 6th form college, Jamie-Lea joined Target Components in August 2018 as administrative support assistant for the sales department. In just a short time, Jamie-Lea has progressed extremely quickly in the role, mastering any tasks sent her way and developing her commercial acumen. She is extremely organised and works well under pressure in a busy and vibrant sales office where she is already very much an integral part of the sales team.”
Helen Page
Marketing & Events Assistant, Network Group
“In her two years at Network Group, Helen has taken charge of, and transformed, the group’s digital strategy, driving partner uptake, creating original content and managing a very busy and dynamic multiple-platform schedule. She has been instrumental in the successful delivery of large events where she excels at managing complex people flows, information and hundreds of moving parts. Working closely with some of the channel’s leading vendors, Helen has developed excellent relationships with partners.”
James Reeves
Product Manager – Smart Home, Box.co.uk
“James Reeves joined Box.co.uk as a junior product manager in May 2018 to set-up and manage its smart home category. From day one, James has shown incredible enthusiasm to learn in the role. In the last 12 months, Box has seen the smart home category grow by 30% month-on-month with an expected turnover for 2019 in excess of £200,000. James has spent the last year learning every aspect of the role at Box with more senior members of the product management team, which involves learning price negotiation via both distributors and manufacturers, product selection, managing and growing supplier relationships, building of customer journey and content for range of smart home products via the Box website, reporting of sales performance to sales management, and carrying out marketing activities to increase the audience for the range of Products. In January 2019, seven months into his employment, James was promoted to product manager, which meant he took on more categories including mobile phone and tablet, and is now responsible for a multimillion pound product portfolio.”
Brandon Ridley
Customer Services, More Computers
“Brandon joined the MoreFrom Group in 2016 as a customer service apprentice and has been instrumental in growing the company brand and its excellent reputation ever since. It did not take long for Brandon to be offered a full-time position, this was typified by his excellent telephone skills, work efficiency and the fact that he does not shy away from going the extra mile with customer service. Brandon has a bright future in the industry and is regarded by his manager as a real asset.”
Sean Robertson
Client Care Specialist, Utopia Computers
“Sean Robertson joined Utopia in 2017 as its customer care expert, bringing with him a raft of experience in finding solutions for clients in the finance industry. With his appointment, he won the role at Utopia over other applicants who had more tech experience. Since 2017 he very quickly became popular with Utopia’s customers, finding ease in building his technical knowledge, he showed an extraordinarily natural ability for fantastic over-and-above customer service. He has now cemented a role as one of Utopia’s key team members. Responsible for nurturing relationships with some of Utopia’s largest customers, he is also often found consulting with Utopia’s system builders to create solutions around his client’s problems and design new products that solve problems his clients didn’t even know they had. He is frequently found chatting to clients around tech, Japanese culture and more.”
Annie Shah
Senior Digital Transformation Marketing, Ingram Micro
“Annie is an exceptional talent within the Ingram Micro marketing team. Her marketing knowledge, creative flair and use of social media has elevated the content and delivery of the company’s vendor marketing plans significantly. Everyone that has experienced her presentation skills comes away with the same thoughts: here is a person that is articulate, passionate about marketing and is going to make a difference now and in the future. Her colleagues say it’s a pleasure to work with her and she has made a huge, positive impression already.”
Vaish Shankara
Marketing Executive, Ingram Micro
“Vaish is a driven, hardworking and personable person. She has fully integrated herself into the team and has taken on her role as speciality lead with professionalism. Many seniors have noted her hard work, professionalism and her excellent communication and presentation skills. Her colleagues say it is a joy to work with her and her knowledge in data driven marketing is great. She’s a strong believer of diversity and inclusion in the IT channel. She is currently working with a group of leaders from Microsoft and other leading distributors and resellers from the IT channel to promote D&I in the workplace.”
Angus Shaw
Sales Manager, Brigantia Partners
“Angus was part of the team that completed a management buyout of the Brigantia business back in January 2016. Now leading a growing sales team, currently numbering eleven, Angus has been one of the key team members responsible for the transformation of Brigantia into a genuine value-added managed service distributor with specialisms around cybersecurity and secure connectivity. The excellent work done by Angus and his sales team has resulted in Brigantia’s recurring revenues consistently growing month-on-month.”
Leah Somers
UK Marketing Manager, Cooler Master
“Joining Cooler Master in December 2017, Leah’s colleagues say she has proven herself to be worthy of a nomination in this years 30 under 30 given her outstanding contribution to the Cooler Master marketing department.”
Matt Thoburn
Assistant Warehouse Manager, Target Components
“Matt started at Target in 2014 as warehouse operative. His manager quickly recognised Matt’s extreme attention to detail, ability to plan and the repartee he had developed with the warehouse staff. Despite his age, Matt moved very quickly up the ranks, becoming trainee stock control manager seven months later in March 2015 and then assistant warehouse manager in 2017, where he was also responsible for logistics leading up to, and during, the Target Open Day. Matt’s enthusiasm and energy have been instrumental in achieving Target’s consistent 99.4% order accuracy rate, averaging less than a single error per week over a full year.”
Scott Walker
Operations and Technical Support Team, HANNspree
“Scott’s role at HANNspree is ever evolving. As his knowledge of the company expands, he has become a major advocate for the brand, especially in the gaming world, where Scott has become the voice of HANNspree’s new range of gaming displays, and, through his networking abilities, has been able to source software support that enables cross platform compatibility. Scott has become a vital member of the UK team, not only by championing the brand, but his practical skills have had a vast influence on several aspects of the day-to-day business, such as managing product support for both customers and the in-house team, including product testing, providing valuable input on market conditions, identifying potential customers
and more.”
Megan Warren
Marketing Executive, Computer World
“In the past 12 months, Megan has achieved a diploma in digital marketing (whilst working full time), been named vExpert for the third consecutive year, and was named as one of the Top 25 Women in Tech in PCR’s 2019 list. She was also named a Young Marketing Professional of the Year and completed her first technical demo and first expert panel at industry events.”
Dan Westmore
Retail Account Manager, CMS Distribution
“Dan joined CMS Distribution in December 2017, stepping into his first sales role after graduating university. He has opened numerous accounts and driven new business throughout 2018 whilst also managing a selection of large retailers. Moving into 2019 he has continued this momentum, showing significant YoY growth across his account base and is now looking at internal progression within CMS.”
Adam Whincup
Consumer 4P Product Manager, Lenovo
“Adam joined Lenovo after obtaining a 1st class degree from UWE in July 2017. Adam’s contribution to the Consumer 4P team has led to him being fast tracked through the graduate scheme and with that, taking on more responsibility on a quarterly basis. Adam focuses on the smaller and emerging product categories within the consumer portfolio. Opinionated, passionate and able to do it with a smile of his face has made Adam a key part of the consumer business in a short time and a passion for the Lenovo products has shone through. He often presents the product ranging plans to key retail partners and drives the key Lenovo messages. Adam engages with directors and VPs on a daily basis and has presented on stage at key UK Lenovo events with a confidence and degree of professionalism beyond his age.”
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