meet me room
What alternative career
path would you like to have
taken if you hadn’t become
involved in the IT industry?
If you could go back to one
great event/moment in your
life and relive it all over again,
what would it be and why?
I would have become a F1 driver!
However, if I am being more realistic,
I would have liked to been involved
in the music business as music has
always been a real passion of mine.
This is a tough one to answer as
there are so many to chose from!
Perhaps when I was learning to fly
in Africa! I was there for six months
living in Harare, Zimbabwe. Living
there was an amazing experience
in itself, but then on top of that
I attended ground schooling and
learnt how to fly light aircraft over
incredible African bush lands. That
was a life changing experience and
having to fly over grass runways
to scare off the elephants before
landing definitely made it all the
more memorable!
Who has had the biggest
influence on your career
and why?
There have been lots of different
people that have had an impact on
me and have influenced my career
decisions. I’ve read many bios of
successful business owners and
have tried to take away something
from each and apply it to my own
life. I think Richard Branson inspired
me the most because of common
interests and a similar approach to life
and business.
Are there any major changes
that you would like to see in
the data centre industry?
Probably for there to be fewer giant
players! People should see the value
in smaller companies that offer a much
more personal service such as Hyve
Managed Hosting. I think that when
customers choose a smaller company,
they will be a priority and they will know
exactly who they can contact with the
assurance that they will get to speak with
a real person straightway without having
to go through layers of automation.
What are your hobbies/
interests outside work?
I enjoy cycling when I can. I take
part in numerous car and motorbike
track days all over the UK which I
absolutely love. I also have a young
family which takes up pretty much
most of my time!
How would you spend your
perfect weekend (imagining
no travel constraints)?
I’ve thought about this one for a while
now and I’ve concluded that I don’t
have a perfect weekend location.
There are so many amazing places to
visit in the world and for me variety is
the spice of life.
If you could invite three
guests, dead or alive, from
history to dinner, who would
they be and why?
I’d have to invite my mother’s father
to dinner. He worked for the War
Office in the 1950s as an intelligence
officer and died at the age of 45
before I was born. The family only
found out about his covert career
long after his death. Everyone in my
family and those that knew him speak
very highly of him and when I look
at old photos of him I see so many
similarities between us. I would have
loved to have met him properly and
hear all of his fascinating stories from
his career.
Do you have any lifetime
targets, professionally or
personally?
Next on the list is getting a helicopter
licence, which I intend to start soon.
In terms of business, we’re aiming to
open a second office and expand our
team into Los Angeles within the next
year or so. We currently offer racks in
the US, but we are deploying cloud
services over there as well. There are
definitely a lot of exciting things in store
for Hyve which I am looking forward to
working on and making a success.
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